


Love You Anyway

by lc2l



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:18:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lc2l/pseuds/lc2l
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam wakes up married. But he's not in Vegas and it's seven years after he fell asleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love You Anyway

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this was started on the kradamadness prompt post so thanks to everyone who commented and was amazing there. It was finished in a crazy sprint so I have to give so much love to [](http://deified.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**deified**](http://deified.dreamwidth.org/) and whoever covered her shift at work so she could beta it super-fast. ILUSFM. (:

Adam wakes up in hospital. The lights overhead swim, his forehead burns like someone's been whacking him over and over with a shovel and his mouth is as dry as a desert. No, three deserts.

"Are you awake?" Someone shines a light in his eyes and he curls away instinctively from the burning in his retinas. The movement only exacerbates the headache, sending it crashing around his skull like every hangover he's ever had coming back with a vengeance. "Can you tell me your name?"

Adam tells himself fiercely that he must have had worse hangovers in the past, though right now he can't think of any. He's going to throw up but before that his head is going to explode and he is _never drinking again._

God, what time is it? If he's missed dress rehearsal again the producer is going to flip his shit and Adam is completely fucked. "Adam," he manages to get out. "Adam Lambert."

"Good," says the doctor, as though he knew that already. Adam tries to remember if he had ID on him the night before, but can't. "How do you feel?"

"Like shit," Adam says, reaching up to knock the fucking light out of his face so he can sit up properly. He has a private room, from the looks of things, and two doctors – a man and a woman - dithering over him with looks of concern and mild awe. Clearly Brad's tales of how shit hospitals are were grossly exaggerated.

Brad. Adam's headache intensifies as he remembers why he let himself get so very fucked up last night.

 _"We're not good for each other, Adam."_

 _"You don't get to decide what's good for me!"_

It's nothing they haven't got through before – the number of times they've had this fight, or one like it, is getting almost ridiculous – but usually by the next morning Adam would be sober enough to find flowers or chocolates or some other apology, not stuck in some hospital with three doctors staring at him like he's in some kind of zoo.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions to check for concussion," the male doctor says, starting to raise the light towards Adam's eyes again, the asshole. Clearly Brad was right about doctor's being total dicks. "Can you tell me where you are?"

Adam glances around for clues. "Some kind of hospital," he says. "In L.A., I guess, unless I was drunker than I thought last night."

"Good, that's good." The light flashes from one eye to the other. "What day of the week is it?"

Adam went out Thursday, so assuming he's only been unconscious one night – please let it be only one night, he cannot afford to lose this job – that would make it, "Friday."

The man checks his watch. "Just after, but close enough. You seem to be doing pretty well. Would you like a drink?"

Adam nods, and a plastic cup with some disgustingly warm water is pushed into his hand by the other doctor. He downs it in one and she refills it instantly. "Aren't you supposed to ask me who's president?" he asks, recalling a thousand TV medical shows.

"Who's president?" she asks, with a bright, indulgent smile.

Adam reclines back on his pillow. "Bush," he says. "That asshole. I went to so many fucking anti-war pro..." he trails off, as he realizes all three doctors are staring at him in various states of shock. "What, you're both republicans?"

*

Seven years. Seven fucking years and – no - it doesn't get any less terrifying in repetition. "And I'm –" he looks from one humourless face to another. "I'm famous? A singer? Really?"

"You were the runner up on American Idol season 8," says the doctor who Adam now knows is called Paul and has never seen anything like this before. "Since then you've released three albums, been on five major tours – four of which you headlined. You've won two Grammys, been nominated for five more."

"Runner up," Adam echoes, and he knows it's arrogance but he always sort of assumed if he got that far in a _singing_ competition he would win. "I'd like to meet the guy who came first."

Paul colours a little. "Yes. Well. He should be here in – um – five minutes or so. We called him just before you woke up. First number on your speed dial, you know."

That pulls Adam up short. "Why would he be on my phone? Why would he be on my speed dial?" The first spot was reserved for his mother. Always, on every phone he owned. Number one: his mom. Number two: Brad. The female doctor – Erin – is bouncing impatiently on her toes. "What?" Adam asks slowly, suddenly not at all sure he wants to hear the answer.

"He's your husband," she says. "You married him."

If this is a joke, Adam is going to _kill_ Brad.

*

Kristopher Allen – Adam's competition, number 1 speed dial and (allegedly) husband – is small with messy, slightly receding brown hair. He's wearing a hoodie over tight fitting, faded jeans and he pushes back the hood as soon as he enters the room, sending off a storm of light flashes behind him. "If you don't do something about the fucking paparazzi, I'm pulling in every single one of 19E's lawyers and this hospital will be lucky to have any _bricks_ left by the time they're done with you."

The gold band on Kris's finger matches the ring that Paul claimed to have picked out of Adam's things. Kris's fingers and cheek are smudged with black ink, his expression torn between pissed and relieved as he looks away from the doctors and at Adam. "At least you're okay, in spite of being a fucking idiot." He grins a little, as though this is a private joke between them and moves forwards.

Adam stares back blankly until the smile falters and Kris stutters to a halt, still a meter away from the bed. "Hey?" he says, hesitant now. "Are you okay?"

He's cute – a little old, but so is Adam now – and his smile lights up his face. He looks muscled and he's very pretty and Adam believes in multiple universes but he cannot imagine one in which he married this guy. "I don't know you."

Kris takes it like a punch to the stomach, like Adam has actually stood up and knocked all the breath out of him. Paul casts Adam a concerned look but all Adam can think is how _dare_ they come in and say he's married to this guy? Adam is a free spirit and a lone wolf and he would never marry anyone.

He just wants to call Brad and say he's sorry – so _fucking_ sorry – and that this isn't funny anymore. He looks away from the guy he didn't marry and lets Paul cross over to mutter in Kris's ear.

Adam can't help glancing back in time to see Kris's face fall into concern and something that Adam refuses to call love.

When Kris steps forward, Adam pulls back. _I don't want you here,_ he tries to say with just his eyes. _I don't know you and I want you gone._

"Oh." Kris lets his arms drop, and rocks back on his heels, resting his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie and trying not to meet Adam's eyes. "So you don't – 2008, huh. You don't know me at all."

Adam turns his head to Erin who hasn't abandoned him for this _interloper,_ unlike fucking Paul. "I don't want him here," he says, and doesn't look at Kris because he doesn't _care_ what Kris thinks of him.

"I –" Erin looks over at Paul desperately. "I don't think –"

"Someone has to keep an eye on you," Paul explains. He has a nice voice, reassuring. Adam wonders what it would taste like and if Paul would be interested (and this is why Brad fights with him but Adam can't help it and exclusivity is just a myth, really). "Erin and I have work to do. I'm sure – well – the two of you can work something out." He looks at his watch and leaves, meaning Adam only has Erin for protection if Kris decides to... whatever.

Kris won't look at Adam, his hands are bunching up in the hoodie pocket. Adam doesn't trust him at all. "Don't leave me," he pleads to Erin.

She's hesitant, but still shaking her head. "I have other patients. I don't know what –" she looks over desperately at Kris, of all people, as though he might have something magic for pulling someone else out of thin air.

Kris's face hardens a little, and he reaches into his pocket – for a moment Adam almost thinks he's going to pull out a knife because his face is so closed off that maybe – but it turns out to be a phone. "I'll just... call someone you'll recognize."

Erin smiles gratefully at him. "See, Adam. It's going to be fine."

Adam doesn't believe that, but Kris settles in a chair on the opposite side of the room which is a good enough start. "Stay," he asks Erin. "Until someone else comes?"

She sighs, looking down at her watch, but sits awkwardly on the edge of Adam's bed. "Just until someone else comes."

*

Brad comes in wearing a string vest, short leather shorts, knee-high boots and more glitter on his head than hair. It's nice to know that some things never change.

Adam takes complete advantage of Erin giving him permission to get up, crawling out of the bed and crossing the room to pull Brad into a tight hug. "I'm sorry," Adam pleads, still following the script in his head that says maybe if he can just make up with Brad, their fight will go away, they can get back together and everything will go back to normal. "I love you, I need you, can we not break up? Or we can get back together, everything can go back to how it was. I can marry you, apparently I do that kind of thing now."

Brad pulls back, keeping his arms out so Adam can't press closer again, and glances sideways of all things so he can see Kris sitting on his stupid chair in the corner with his stupid legs pulled up against his chest and his fucking eyes sad like Adam's hurting him personally.

Brad is wearing some kind of glittery lip gloss and Adam presses against his palms in the hope that he can get close enough to see how it tastes.

Kris gets to his feet with a scrape of metal legs on tiles. "I'm going to get a coffee."

"Kris –" Brad starts, going to turn his head again but Adam catches his cheek before he can.

"Don't look at him," Adam pleads. "Who cares about him? I have a ring, marry me."

Brad's fingers are soft, familiar and _amazing_ against Adam's cheek and after this shitty excuse for a morning, Adam lets himself moan softly and lean into the touch. "Yeah," Brad says gently. "No, that's not going to happen."

The door to the room slams shut because Kris has a fucking temper, apparently. Adam hates guys like that. "Why not?" he says, turning his head to taste Brad's fingertips. "We were good together, we can be good together, I won't look at anyone else. Not ever again, I swear."

Brad pulls his hand away, taking several steps backwards. "Because we never worked, because it's been seven years and we've both moved on." All of which Adam can fix as soon as he gets out of this fucking hospital. "Because I know your _husband_." Like that's an actual reason. "Because he's a good friend of mine and an amazing guy."

Like Adam hasn't already spend twenty fucking minutes listening to Erin going on about Kris's fucking charity work and music and puppy-saving expeditions or what the fuck ever.

Kris could be a fucking angel of the lord for all Adam would still _not give a shit_ because he didn't marry the fucker.

"Is anyone here not in love with that fucking twink?"

Brad takes half a step forward, frowning. "You, apparently. Have you given him a chance?"

"Why would I want to give him a chance?" Adam demands. "I don't know him, I didn't marry him. I'm not the marrying type, you know that and he's barely my type and he _beat_ me at a fucking singing contest. I don't know him, I don't love him, I just want you."

Brad's lips taste of strawberries. His fist mostly tastes of blood.

*

"He can't come home with me," Brad says, sitting at the side of the room and watching Adam as though he expects to be the victim of sexual assault at any moment. "Cass would freak."

Brad can't be actually in love with Cassidy, anyway. It's Adam and Brad, together, _us against the world_ the way it always has been. The way it always should be. Adam nurses his split lip gently.

"I'll call –" Kris starts but hesitates, looking over at Adam. "Who do you want me to call?"

The hospital needs to free up the bed but - according to Paul - Adam needs to remain under supervision until his memory returns. "Where do I live?" Adam asks.

Kris's cheeks turn faintly red and he doesn't meet Adam's eyes. "With me. So I guess you don't want –"

"Why not?" Adam interrupts. "You can keep an eye on me, right? Isn't that one of your _husbandly duties."_

Kris flinches as though Adam hit him again, but nods anyway and when he raises his head he's smiling a little. "If that's what you want."

It's not what Adam wants. Adam wants to go back with Brad to their shitty apartment where the shower spits and the heating only works if everything else in the building is shut off. He wants to have urgent, hot, angry sex in a bed with the springs sticking through the mattress and forget about everything else.

But they 'don't do that anymore'. Brad is living with _Cassidy_ and Adam is _married_ and considering everything so far has been bad news he wants to stop now before he can get worse. He can treat this as a challenge. Live with the southern twink long enough to be pronounced healthy enough to get a place of his own and start fixing his life.

Unless he can drive Kris away before that, and from the looks Kris is giving him he's starting to think that could be easy.

*

Kris takes his coffee black with three sugars. Adam supposes he should start keeping track of these things since they're _happily married_ and they live together.

"I could call someone else," Kris offers for the millionth time, as Adam changes behind a screen into clothes he can't remember owning.

"No," Adam says, letting sarcasm drip from his voice like a fucking _hive_ of honey. "Let's visit the old homestead. I want to see how _happy_ our life is together." The ring is sitting on the side, taunting him. He picks it up and steps out from the screen to flick it at Kris who – disappointingly – catches it.

Kris glances down, tracing his thumb across the infinity symbol cut on the inside of the band. (Adam has noticed the tattoo on his arm in the same shape, but he's going to keep pretending that it's not there until his dying day if he has to.) "I don't understand why you hate me so much."

Adam lets out a harsh 'hah' which is nothing more than Kris deserves and he shouldn't look so damn upset about it. "I had a fight with my boyfriend, I got drunk and when I woke up I was married to a stranger who looked about fifteen, had an irrational dislike of photographers and I didn't know him and he wasn't really my type and _you don't know me at all_."

Kris rests his hands in his jean pockets and doesn't meet Adam's eyes. "I married you, didn't I?"

"I don't know," Adam throws back. "Did you?" There's an ipod in Adam's jacket pocket and he tugs it out, shoving an earphone in his ear. "I hope you have a car."

"You could stay with Cass. Or Monte. Or Tommy, he's in town."

Adam shoves the other headphone in so Kris shuts up talking about Adam's friends by their nicknames as though he knows them and who the fuck is Tommy anyway? He follows Kris out to the car park where a sleek black mustang is sitting. It doesn't seem at all like the kind of thing Kris would drive – far too cool – but he doesn't comment, just climbs in the passenger door and starts flicking through the CD collection in the glove compartment.

"Do you want to drive?" Kris asks, holding up a set of keys with an eye of Horus key chain hanging from them. "It's your car."

Of course it's Adam's car. Heaven forbid that Kris would buy it. He probably has some eco friendly Ford Focus (or the future equivalent of a Ford Focus) squirreled away somewhere. "I don't know how," Adam spits out, hating that he has to admit it. He should have gone slower with Brad, shouldn't have let anything get between him and Brad's house.

He tugs out a CD with an interesting blue cover and almost drops it when he sees his own, highly photo shopped face staring up at him.

Kris looks over, keys still in the ignition. "Your first studio album," he explains as Adam traces the oddly effeminate lines of his own face. "Do you want me to play it?"

He doesn't want to take out the headphones – he's not at all sure what he's listening to but it's fucking _fantastic_ – but this is his face and his album. He tugs the headphones from his ears and throws the CD case at Kris. "Whatever."

Listening to his voice coming through the speakers on a song he's never heard in his life is a surreal experience. It's catchy, it seems like a good song but he can't focus on that because it's his voice echoing though the car like a stranger. It sends a chill down his spine, the feeling that someone has snuck in and stolen something he never had.

"So," Kris says, apparently assuming he's allowed to make conversation as he pulls out of the car park. "What makes you so sure I don't know you at all?"

 _Everything_ , Adam wants to say. _Everything about you. The fact that you think you have a chance with me. The fact that you're here and you're not Brad and I don't like you._ "You don't know the first thing about me."

"Enlighten me."

Adam turns his head to the window. L.A. seems the same as how he left it, except the buildings are bigger and Kris is driving towards the nice parts, not the shithole Adam used to live in. "I'm not the marrying kind," he says eventually, because that's the sticking point he reaches every time he tries to imagine a course his life could have taken to end up here. "If you knew me, you'd never have asked."

Damn the reflection in the window. Adam doesn't want to see Kris's small smile. "I didn't." Kris touches his wedding ring with one hand. "The day gay marriage became legal in Arkansas, you went down on one knee and told me you didn't want to wait another moment."

Adam shivers. "That doesn't sound like me." He turns the music up and Kris finally takes the hint, subsiding into silence.

*

Their house is smaller than Adam would have expected considering between them they apparently have nine albums, four concert DVDs and two Grammys. "Where did all the money go?"

Kris glances over at him and shrugs a little. "Mine goes to charity, yours goes on shoes."

There's no accusation in his voice, but Adam feels substandard anyway. Of course Kris gives to charity, he probably goes to disaster sites and helps out purely out of the _goodness of his heart_ or something saccharine like that. He's insipid and far too goody-two-shoes and Adam silently starts compiling a list of all the things about Kris he hates.

He calls it 'Reasons I Would Never Marry Kris Allen.'

The key to the house is on the same ring as the keyring of Adam's tattoo and the key to Adam's car. That goes on the list entitled 'Evidence That I Did.' There are four pairs of shoes by the door: two are studded black leather, one is snakeskin and the last is a pair of battered vans that have been worn long enough to get frayed laces and holes in the toes. On a counter is a photo of thirteen people against an _American Idol_ backdrop. Adam can pick out himself and Kris, the rest of the faces are completely unfamiliar.

"Do you want a coffee?" Kris asks, kicking his shoes – a slightly newer pair of sneakers with only the beginnings of holes in the toes – towards the pile.

"I thought you knew me," Adam throws out, tugging at the zips holding his boots on. What he really wants is a bottle big enough to drown himself in, or at least enough shots that he can forget this whole day ever happened. Maybe if he gets drunk enough he'll hit his head and wake up back where he used to be. This could be one of those life lesson movies telling him to go back and be nicer to Brad, be a better boyfriend so he doesn't end up with a miniature mansion in Beverly hills and a marriage to the guy who beat him at a _singing_ competition.

Kris rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "You can explore, I guess." He hesitates. "I didn't mean – you give to charity too. That's just a joke we have because you do buy a lot of shoes and I don't and the house was always big enough which was all we ever –"

Adam walks past him into the main room and Kris trails off. There are two leather sofas at right angles to each other, one clearly more used than the other, and a fucking gigantic television with huge speakers and three kinds of DVD player. Apparently they do occasionally spend their money on useful things.

There are two guitars leaning against the wall. One dark wood acoustic and one black electric flying V covered in glitter and stickers.

Adam turns to call to Kris, but finds Kris is already standing in the doorway watching him. "I play guitar?" Adam asks.

Kris laughs. "On occasion," he says. "You get frustrated with it very quickly."

Adam has tried to learn an instrument on at least a thousand occasions that he can remember. It's never lasted long enough for him to learn more than a handful of notes before returning to something he's good at. "Why haven't I quit?"

"You have a very patient teacher." He drags a hand back through his hair, leaving it resting on the back of his neck. "I was told not to let you sleep for twelve hours. Do you want to try it now? See if you still have muscle memory?"

Adam shudders very slightly. The idea that his hands might know something that his head can't even recall learning is too strange, too scary on top of everything else. "You said something about coffee?"

Kris's smile dies as quickly as it started to form. "Right," he says, retreating from the room. "Okay."

*

The house is too small for Adam to drag his exploration out until he's allowed to sleep. The main room is pretty basic, aside from the TV and guitars it houses an extensive music collection – CDs, cassettes and even an intense collection of vinyl – and a bookshelf full of DVDs neatly separated into 3 categories: 'Adam's', 'Kris's' and 'movie night'.

The bathroom is huge with a tub that's more of a Jacuzzi than anything and plenty of shelves for all the hair care products Adam can remember dreaming about but was never quite rich enough to afford.

There are three bedrooms but only one looks occupied, the bed sheets wrinkled and the window half open. There's some kind of violin case lying on the floor, Kris's plaid shirts and Adam's metallic leather jackets share a closet and the dressing table has expensive make up, glitter and scraps of paper with snatches of songs scattered all over it. Adam doesn't recognize the handwriting.

The list of evidence that he is actually married is getting long.

He checks out the other two bedrooms and finds three more closets which appear to house the rest of Adam's extensive wardrobe. He tries on a few jackets, runs his fingers across the fabric of a silk shirt, and thinks – yeah – he could probably get used to this.

There's a light knock on the doorframe and he turns to see Kris watching him, holding a KISS mug like a peace offering. "Hey," he says, offering a small smile as he holds out the mug. "Do you want to watch a movie or something?"

Adam was wrong. There is no way he will ever be used to this. "Can I sleep in this room?" His clothes are here, the bed looks made and there's no evidence of Kris. He crosses to take the mug from Kris's hand – careful not to brush Kris's skin at all – and retreats back.

Kris brushes this rejection off the same way he did all of the others. "Sure," he says. "But not for –"

"Twelve hours. I know." The coffee is far sweeter than he's used to. Clearly in this time they don't have to scrimp and save, choosing between sugar and coffee if they can afford anything at all. "Can we go out?"

Kris shakes his head apologetically. "Paparazzi," he says. "They want to know why you were in hospital. I sent a tweet to say you were okay, but had to stay in bed. When I explained everything to Lane, she said -"

"What the fuck is a tweet?"

"Oh." Kris is starting to look a little flustered. "Sorry, I didn't think. It's like a Facebook update, do you know Facebook?"

It's nice to know Adam has married someone capable of making him feel like an idiot child. "Of course I know Facebook. I'm not a fucking idiot. MySpace is better."

Kris doesn't meet his eyes. "MySpace is pretty dead these days." He kicks the ground with one foot. "Are you tired? Hungry? Whatever you want to do is – movies, music, we can do whatever."

"Movies," Adam says, throwing Kris a bone because he's tired and surely some of the films on the shelves will be ones he's seen before. He needs something familiar. "Movies and popcorn."

Kris lets him choose from the section labelled 'Adam's' and makes popcorn on the stove like they're living in the eighties.

 _Velvet Goldmine_ is just as good as it's always been but Adam wishes Brad was curled under his arm to laugh, kiss him twice for every on screen kiss and make stupid lists of all the stuff from the movie that Adam has to do 'when he's famous'.

Kris sits on the opposite end of the couch in silence.

*

 _The Lion King_ finishes. Adam is yawning – half asleep but forcing himself to sing along or dance so he doesn't die or whatever – as he picks up _Ten Things I Hate About You_ and glances over to see if Kris is ready to change the disc because Adam has no idea how.

Kris is curled up on the arm of the sofa, one arm under his head like a pillow, the other hanging down with the remote control held in a very loose grip at the tips of his fingers. He looks exhausted and Adam has to fight down the brief urge to find a blanket and cover him up because... because he's small and he looked even younger curled up like a puppy.

It doesn't mean Adam likes him. He just has protective instincts. It could happen to anyone and he has to look away from Kris's sleeping face to remind himself that he doesn't care.

He takes the remote control from Kris's loose fingers and attempts to figure it out. His _Ten Things I Hate About You_ disc is _blu-ray_ which Adam didn't understand the point of in the past and he always assumed it would die a fast, painful death.

The remote has about a thousand buttons, only half of which he even recognizes and none of which are labelled.

"Kris?" Adam reaches over to touch Kris's shoulder with one hand. "Kris, how do I do this?"

Kris lets out a low moan, rolling over onto his stomach and faceplanting the arm of the sofa. "Love you too," he mumbles, reaching back to flail about for Adam's hand.

Adam tugs it back and looks back at the remote in his lap. There's a definite section labelled 'DVD' which is a format Adam totally understands and when he hits the eject button, a DVD disc tray opens on one of the numerous gadgets. So far, so good. Now he just has to find an actual DVD to put in it.

Nothing on his shelf fits in the category except for another copy of Velvet Goldmine, presumably the same one he had in 2008 since it has the scratches on the case from the time they played catch with it and the handwritten notes on the back of the case noting down the best parts of the film to play at parties and how many drinks you end up having to take with each of the various drinking games.

Adam tugs it out, tracing his fingers across Brad's rough scrawl and his own neat comments. Why did he fight with Brad? God, he can barely even remember. Brad was dancing with someone else, maybe? Adam had had a bad day and he'd got bitchy and then Brad was shouting at him about how Adam was always checking other people out which was... so Adam noticed people, he never _did_ anything about it.

It was just a routine fight, they had them all the time. They were never supposed to lead to any kind of break up but maybe that one did. If this is a life lesson movie, that was the one which did.

Fuck. He rubs his eyes with one hand, shaking his head to wake himself up, and shoves the DVD box back on his shelf. He can fix this. He just needs time, and he needs to be awake enough to think properly which means a little more patience.

There's a leather disc case at the end of the 'movie nights' shelf and he tugs that out. It has a large sticker on the front which reads – in an unfamiliar hand – _'American Idol season 8 DVDs'_ and underneath that – in Adam's handwriting – ' _aka the season where America realized the utter awesomeness that is Kris Allen.'_

Adam tugs it out, touches his fingers to the slight curling at the edge of the stickers that suggests they've been on there for a long time. This is his future. Here in his hands are all the answers to 'how did we meet?' and 'how did he beat me?' and possibly also 'why the fuck did I marry him?' (something that Adam is just going to have to treat as fact until he wakes up back in 2008 and can fix things.)

Kris is on his other side by the time Adam returns to the couch and has somehow managed to kick the popcorn bowl onto the floor. Adam picks it up, dropping it onto the table with a clatter loud enough to wake the dead and practically jumps back onto the sofa, rocking it backwards.

Kris lets out a low intelligible murmur and rolls onto his back without waking. Adam gives up and hits play.

*

He's on top four week – Idol had an actual rock week, how fucking awesome is that? – at the end of Gokey singing _Dream On_ when Kris finally bolts awake. "Oh God," he says, eyes flicking to the screen. "Is this a nightmare? I thought we promised we would _never watch this again_."

Adam turns to look at him as the – clearly deaf – studio audience start applauding. Kris is wiping his eyes with the back of one hand, the jacket that Adam draped over him falling off his shoulders as he sits up.

"I wouldn't know," Adam says, snatching the jacket before Kris is alert enough to notice.

He can see in Kris's eyes the exact moment that he remembers, his smile dying and his hands falling back into his lap. "God," Kris says – too loudly, to cover up the horribly awkward silence. "How long was I asleep? Too long, did you watch the entire season?"

Adam hits pause before the judges can spew out anymore bullshit. Maybe Kris won because America got pissed about being told what to do all the damn time. "I watched some of the performances, skipped over the filler."

He watched all of Kris's performances. They were good – well played, well arranged, well sung – but there was nothing huge and groundbreaking that could explain why he won.

He hadn't watched his own songs. Watching himself was bad enough at the best of times, but watching himself doing performances he'd never done, singing songs he didn't even _know_ was like watching a ghost or a fucked up dream and he just couldn't. "Why did they add a fourth judge?"

"I don't know, maybe they decided America was tired of hearing people sing every week." Kris closes his eyes and rotates his head slowly around a full circle, trying to work out any cricks in his neck. "I am never sleeping on this couch again, I swear to God."

There is another awkward silence as though he expects Adam to have some reaction to this.

"Um," Adam says. "Good for you."

Kris isn't getting any better at hiding the disappointment on his face but he still says nothing about it, just swallows it down and doesn't meet Adam's eyes. "Sorry. I'm always like this when I wake up, forgetting everything." He glances at his watch. "Well it's been more than twelve hours. You must be exhausted. God, I'm sorry I fell asleep on you. It's just been a long day with the studio and the pound and now all of this – not that it's your fault, I don't blame you or anything. You're doing amazing."

"I can sleep?" Adam says, focusing on the one part of Kris's monologue that actually made sense.

Kris shakes his hands, apparently trying to wake himself up. "Of course, yes, everything's fine. Do you want to eat something first, or are you good?"

"I'm good," Adam says. "I just need to sleep."

"Okay." Kris glances back at his watch. "Look, I know this isn't ideal but I need to go to the studio to sort out some things. Paul said you could be left for a little while after twelve hours as long as I could guarantee you weren't going to do something stupid so if you could please promise me you'll go to bed and sleep, you'd be a real lifesaver?"

He's already grabbing a black jacket from the hooks by the door and a pair of oversize Hollywood glasses. "Please, Adam? Promise me."

Adam never breaks a promise if he can help it, and he hates that Kris clearly knows that. "Fine."

"I'll be back in, like, five hours tops." He pulls a hat on to hide his face and hesitates in the doorway, reaching into his pocket to toss a small black rectangle back at Adam. "Call me, if you have a problem. I'm number –"

"One," Adam says, picking up the phone from the floor. "I know."

*

He sleeps, because he isn't sure what else to do. There are clothes in the wardrobe that fit him perfectly. The mattress is too soft, the covers too luxurious, the space next to him too empty and he swears he won't be able to sleep a wink right up until the moment he does.

He dreams that he's standing on a stage singing something and a guy with asymmetrical blond hair whispers "just do whatever you like," a moment before Adam kisses him.

*

The front door slamming shut jolts Adam out of sleep like a gunshot. His eyes flash open on an unfamiliar white painted ceiling, three dark wood closets and walls covered in art he could never afford. The covers have fallen down to his waist and he's wearing a T-shirt that doesn't belong to him and there's someone walking around downstairs.

It's a good five minutes before he stops panicking enough to remember that he's travelled forward in time to learn an important lesson about how fame doesn't solve everything or he has to appreciate what he has or some other piece of advice that is not worth this much trauma.

He falls back onto the pillows, trying to calm his breathing as footsteps start making their way up the stairs and there's a very light knock on the door to his bedroom. "Kris?" he calls, because he has no idea who else has the keys to this house and it could be anyone out there and – fuck – now he's panicking again.

The door opens a little to reveal Kris, holding another mug of something and still fucking smiling. Adam changes his mind, he wishes someone else – anyone else – had the key to the house so they could be here instead. "What do you want?"

Kris holds up the mug. "I brought coffee."

Adam is prepared to admit that this might be one instance where Kris is not all bad. He sits up, which Kris takes as an invitation to step into the room and pass Adam the mug. It's still too sweet, but sipping it helps him calm down a little further. He's learning life lessons by the minute here, surely soon he'll find the one that lets him go home.

Kris sits hesitantly on the end of the bed, glancing at Adam every two second as though to check that he's okay. "You slept for nearly eighteen hours. I think every single person you know has called at least once to ask if you're okay and the number of @replies you're getting is crazy."

Adam's head is starting to ache, whatever painkillers they gave him at the hospital apparently wearing off. Kris speaking in code isn't helping.

Kris seems to realize that Adam has no idea what he's talking about. "Your fans are worried," he clarifies. "The label wants to know when you'll be up and ready to record because they're heartless fuckers who are only interested in the money. Your friends want to see you, your mom said she loves you and she can be here in an hour if you need her."

"Why are there white hairs all over your shirt?" Adam asks, to shut Kris up about his friends and his parents. Kris isn't allowed to be friends with Adam's mom.

Kris glances down at his top and plucks a single short white hair off. "I had to go to the pet shop," he says, more awkward now than he was casually divulging all the details of Adam's life. "We were supposed to pick up Clarence today but because of your – well obviously we can't now." He notices more white hairs on his trousers and stands up, turning to see hairs on Adam's bed. "Sorry."

"Who's Clarence?"

Kris is very much not meeting his eyes now. "Our puppy," he says. "Or, soon to be our puppy. We couldn't pick him up until we were both back from tour."

They have a puppy. They have a puppy and labelled DVD shelves and _cute little in jokes_. This whole relationship could have been storyboarded by Hollywood under the heading 'perfect marriage' and it is so completely _not_ Adam that he wants to scream. "Why Clarence?"

Kris shrugs. "You named him."

Adam opens his mouth to protest, then closes it again because – yeah – that actually does sound like something he would do.

"I should change." Kris drags one hand through his hair and it comes away covered in white dog hairs. "And shower." He takes half a step towards Adam, then stops as though he was about to go in for a kiss or something. "I'll get some food. Come down whenever you're ready." The bedroom door closes behind him.

Adam takes another sip of his coffee and wishes he was home.

*

He notices it first in the mirror on the inside of his closet while he selects a pair of tight, jeans and an artfully torn Prince T-shirt. He's looking at himself, finding the small changes that the last seven years have wrought, touching black and red hair where it falls in spikes against his cheek, tracing the slight lines on his forehead and the faded shadow of hastily removed eyeliner.

He touches his stomach slowly, hesitantly. It rumbles at his touch – a reminder that the last time he remembers eating anything was seven years ago – but more than that, it's too soft. He tugs his T-shirt up, pinching between thumb and forefinger to see if – yeah.

Adam snatches the pile of clothes from the bed and crosses into the luxurious bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. The hot tub of complete decadence is on his left, but he's not really in the mood to relax with Kris fucking Allen downstairs fixing some kind of calorie-rich, fat-intensive dinner.

He tugs the T-shirt off over his head to examine himself in the bathroom mirror from all angles. The weight gain is ridiculous – has he just given up dieting entirely? Is this what happens when he doesn't have to scrimp and save?

So he's a little more toned than he used to be, when he finally digs out a pair of scales from one of the cupboards he's gained so much weight he almost wants to cry. He's supposedly a rockstar, shouldn't that mean he cares about these things?

Fuck, it's going to take so long to burn all of the excess off. So long he can bet is full of all the food he likes and with enough money to buy in anything he doesn't have.

He snatches half the bottles off the side, focusing on the black hair dye, blue hair dye and bleach. He can at least return something to normal.

*

There's music coming from downstairs when Adam finally finishes drying his hair. The clothes fit him well and, he supposes, he looks good in them, but he can't help touching his stomach every few seconds to feel where all the extra pounds have piled on.

Adam doesn't realize it's Kris playing until he's already halfway down the stairs. Kris and an acoustic guitar, his voice richer than it was on Idol but still unmistakably the same.

 _"I, I will remember you, and all of the things that we go through  
There is so much I could say but words get in the way, so  
When we're not together, I will remember you."_

Kris is sitting on the sofa of the living room, the brown acoustic guitar resting in his lap as he plucks out the rhythm without needing to look. The morning sunlight shines through the windows to catch his hair, the curves of muscles on his arms and the way his whole body is completely focused on the music.

The bottom step creaks and Kris's head jerks up, focus draining into the familiar and hated nervous smile. There is a moment of surprise, and disappointment when he takes in Adam's hair, which Adam chooses to regard as a victory.

He doesn't comment on it. "Do you want something to eat?"

Adam touches his stomach with one hand, silently willing it to stay quiet. "No."

"You haven't eaten in over a day." He's already shrugging the guitar off as though he's about to get up and ignore Adam entirely. "I picked up bacon, waffles, pop tarts. If you want pancakes –"

"I said no," Adam snaps. Kris is tiny and perfectly built and – _fuck_ – Adam has gone and married someone with a fucking amazing metabolism because apparently he is a masochistic, overweight _idiot_ in the future. "I'm not hungry." He snatches the guitar up from where Kris laid it down just for something to do with his hands. The strap goes over his head, one hand on the strings, one on the incomprehensible lines of the neck. "Oh, and look, I don't know how to play the fucking guitar. What a big fucking surprise since I'm apparently some kind of music –"

Kris stands up, completely ignoring Adam's indignant rage in favour reaching out to touch his left hand, moving the fingers one by one into various positions on the frets. "Now strum," he says, holding Adam's fingers still.

Adam is about to say that he was in the middle of a rant and he doesn't want to learn guitar and he's not hungry, he needs to lose weight and Kris can't tell him what to do because they're not married and none of this make any sense and he can't work out how to put everything he wants to scream into words.

Kris looks up at him, raising one eyebrow very slightly as though in an invitation for Adam to say whatever he likes.

Adam strums.

"That's A-minor," Kris says, moving Adam's fingers to another position. "This is D." This time he takes his hand away and Adam's fingers settle against the neck, as though moving into a more familiar position. "Strum," Kris prompts.

Adam strums a few times, down and up, getting used to the way his fingers hit the strings, then – with Kris's help – moves his hand back to A-minor to strum that one. The progression reminds him of something but he can't quite –

Kris picks up the black guitar joining Adam on the two-chord combo. _"Mad world,"_ he sings softly, as Adam tries to follow the rhythm he's playing. _"Mad world."_

It's not like remembering. He can't think of a chord before Kris shows it to him and he keeps forgetting them and missing the strings when he tries to move between them. His chords buzz because his hands are in the wrong place is his fingers are touching strings they shouldn't.

But Adam can remember trying guitar before and he could never remember the chords or switch between them and his mind got caught up trying to play a chord and sing at the same time, throwing the whole process out of sync. It's like now he has a natural aptitude, but he still has to learn and it's not so very scary, really.

It helps that Kris seems to forget about disappointment or marriages or amnesia when he's in teaching mode. He patiently puts Adam's fingers in C over and over again, taps the back of Adam's hand when he's got something wrong to give Adam a chance to fix it.

His smile when Adam gets something right is uncalculated, uncontrolled and lights up the room. Adam tries harder just to see that smile.

*

Adam knows a handful of chords and can kind of play Mad World when the doorbell rings. "That'll be them," Kris says, pulling Adam's electric guitar off over his head. "You sure you're up for this?"

Brad had called shortly before Adam got downstairs to see if Adam was up for receiving visitors. When Kris had mentioned it, Adam had pretty much zeroed in on 'Brad wants to come over', effectively blanking out the fact that he'd have to face other people and he couldn't actually resume his undying campaign to restart their relationship.

The important thing is that Brad is coming. If Adam can fix their friendship he can start sowing seeds of doubt about Cassidy, he can lose all the weight he's gained and – well, he can fix things. They can move out, buy a decent apartment with all of Adam's money, a house even.

Adam puts the guitar back as Kris opens the door, smoothing his T-shirt down over his stomach and trying to remind himself that no one's going to judge him too obviously because this is the Adam they know.

God, he should've put make-up on. He should've done his hair up and his make-up and put on one of the fabulous jackets, anything to distract from the age lines and the shadows under his eyes and the weight.

Alisan looks as amazing as ever, beaming in a black mini-dress and ten inch heels. A young woman with black and purple streaked hair is a complete blank in Adam's memory until she smiles and he recognizes the face of the redhead from Idol. "Allison Iraheta?"

She beams, practically launching herself across the room to hug him tight. "Do you remember me? If you don't, I'm Allison and I'm your best friend – we are in fact so close that you let me use your bathroom and your shampoo whenever you ask."

Adam looks over her head at Brad, who is standing in the doorway clasping Cassidy's hand in a way that makes Adam want to go somewhere private and smash something very expensive. "I thought this was going to be people I knew."

"Ally and I insisted," says a complete stranger with awesome black-and-blond hair, standing next to Monte by the coat rack. "Tommy Joe Ratliff, I play in your band." As he smiles, Adam can suddenly place him. He's the guy from the dream, the guy Adam kissed.

So, Adam regularly leaves Kris for long stretches of time to tour the world with a hot, eyeliner wearing guy who has an amazing ass, is a musician and he's definitely kissed.

Apparently his rule about not cheating is not a rule he sticks to in the future. He eyes Tommy while leading the others inside, wondering what it'll take to get some action from him now.

Brad is wearing leather pants that may as well not be there for all they cover up, but he's holding Cassidy's fucking hand as though he has some kind of point to make.

*

They end up in some kind of circle on the sofas. Kris brings two large bowls of crisps out from the kitchen and sits on the arm of the sofa, looking impossibly out of place with his natural brown hair and plaid shirt.

"So," says Alisan – self appointed leader of whatever the hell this is. "We're all here because we want Adam to get his memories back."

Adam wonders if he should leave since all he wants is to hit his head and wake up back in fucking 2008 where he belongs, with enough time to fix all this. When he looks up, Kris is watching him as though he knows exactly what Adam is thinking.

Adam stays.

  
*

Three hours later he feels no closer to remembering anything than he was when they started, his head hurts more than he ever thought was possible and he was forced to eat two fucking burgers because Monte noticed he hadn't taken any from the plate and Kris mentioned that he hadn't eaten anything all day.

Brad hasn't let go of Cassidy's hand.

He has a timeline of everything major for the last seven years that he can't remember, photos from nights out he probably couldn't remember the morning after let alone now, copies of all the albums he can't remember making and is too freaked to listen to.

None of it helps and the group have fallen into awkward hushed conversations between themselves about things Adam didn't even attend, occasionally looking up to offer a "hey, do you remember when we –"

Adam doesn't even both replying anymore, and they subside into silence pretty quickly.

They keep describing this guy to him and all he can think is that he wouldn't even want to be _friends_ with his current-self. His current-self is a pretentious ass with a fucking trophy husband and a puppy.

Tommy stands up, saying something about using the bathroom. Adam waits half a minute then slips up the stairs after him. The bathroom door is locked, so he waits outside, bouncing on his toes a little because he hasn't had sex in... he has no fucking idea but Tommy is hot and Adam's been thinking about this for three hours.

"Adam?"

Adam turns to see Brad standing at the top of the stairs and for a moment his cock does all the thinking and he's convinced that Brad has come up to tell him it was never Cassidy and it was always Adam and can they fuck now in Adam's huge bed.

Brad holds up both hands like a barrier before Adam has done so much as inch forwards. "I'm with Cass, Adam. We're over."

Adam forces himself not to whine. "We don't have to be. It was just a stupid fight and whatever I said I didn't mean it, you know I never really mean it." He can't help stepping forward, even though it just results in Brad's hands flat against his chest to hold him back. "We can get past it."

"Maybe we did," Brad offers. "When was it?"

Adam tells him, and watches his face fall.

"Oh," he says, letting his hands fall but also turning away which means Adam still isn't allowed to kiss him (and he has to fucking do this right or he'll lose Brad again). "No. We didn't get past that."

"But we have a second chance now," Adam pleads. "That guy they're all talking about, the guy who broke up with you and married Kris, I don't know him. I don't want to know him, but we could leave. We could go to Europe, get a flat in Paris, go to all the shows and eat croissants every day. You and me, the way we're meant to be, the way we always were."

Brad is already shaking his head, turning a little with a small sad smile. "It was never you and me, Adam. It was never going to be you and me." He has to lean up to kiss Adam on the cheek. "I am, and will always be your friend. Nothing more." His fingers linger for the briefest moment against Adam's hand, then he turns to walk downstairs back to Cassidy and Kris and all the people who have changed.

The bathroom door opens. Adam turns on the spot, reaching out to grab the back of Tommy's head and kiss him, feeling Tommy move into the perfect place as though they've done this a thousand times.

Then Tommy is pulling back, and his hands are hanging down when they should be touching Adam. "What was that?" he asks, rubbing his mouth with the back of one hand.

"We do this," Adam says, because he can't have got this wrong too, he has to be sleeping with someone and he just wants something familiar. "I had a dream. We do this."

Tommy pushes his hair back uncomfortably. "On stage," he says. "It's part of the show. Not even that, since Kris. And I'm straight."

Adam presses forward a little. "So? I'll blow you, you don't have to do anything, I don't care."

Tommy pushes him back. "I have a girlfriend, Adam."

"And I have a husband. Please."

But Tommy is already slipping past him. "I should go." The bathroom door shuts behind him leaving Adam with a fucking million dollar tub, a thousand bottles of expensive fucking _shit_ and no one beside him.

He screams until his voice is hoarse, then snatches all of the bottles he can reach and crosses to the window, throwing them one by one into the road to hear them smash. Fuck Brad. Fuck Brad and fuck Cassidy and fuck Tommy Joe fucking Ratliff and fuck Adam fucking Lambert for good measure because the guy is a fucking fat asshole and Adam just wants him fucking gone.

He throws every bottle that looks like it might smash, then starts opening the others and pouring them into the bath, watching them wind their way down toward the drain, the dyes staining the side of the tub in all colours of the fucking rainbow as he slumps against the wall and presses his head against his knees, shoulders shaking.

*

Kris is the only person left, sitting on the sofa and tuning his guitar as though there is nothing wrong with the world.

"Why don't you hate me?" Adam asks, his voice scratched up and broken. "I would hate me. I would have thrown off my ring and left by now if I was married to this much of an asshole."

Kris looks at him and places the guitar carefully to one side. "Two years ago –"

"I won't remember this."

"If I thought you'd remember, I wouldn't be telling you. Two years ago, I stood in a field opposite the church where my parents got married and I made a promise. I didn't promise 'as long as he remembers ' or 'as long as he loves me back.' I promised completely, unconditionally and forever." He's looking up, as though it can actually be that easy.

Adam swallows, then crosses to sit on the sofa next to him and a moment later there's a guitar on his lap.

"Now," Kris says, moving his fingers. "This is E-minor."

Adam strums.

*

He lies awake. There is a tiny crack in the velvet curtains that lets a slice of L.A. light cut across the room and Adam's bed. Adam holds his hand in it, examining the tiny lines on his skin and wondering which were there before and which are new.

It seems like something he should know.

His eyes flick to the side –again – his subconscious still programmed to ask the person sleeping next to him even though there's no one, there can't be anyone, just his phone with Brad's number on the screen. He thinks about calling it, but he's been thinking about calling it since he came up here after a Gossip Girl marathon (they can download the episodes directly onto the TV now, how awesome is that?) and the fact that he still hasn't suggests he won't.

He can't call Brad's number and have Cassidy answer. He can't talk to Brad and hear Cassidy in the background. He can't – he doesn't _want_ confirmation that Brad and Cassidy are living together and fucking and Brad isn't sleeping alone.

He checks the clock. Three forty five. Ten minutes since he last looked.

He spreads out over the whole bed because he can and it's his bed and not sharing is so much better because you don't have to fight over the covers or wake up in a pile of tangled and uncomfortable limbs.

He tugs the second pillow, curving his arms around it. This is better. It's better.

He checks the clock. Three forty-seven.

He rolls onto his back and runs through all the chords he learned, moving his fingers into the patterns against the pillow and humming the notes quietly because there's no one to disturb and he can which is better. It's just better.

Three fifty.

He can barely keep his eyes open and it doesn't make sense that he's not asleep but he can't get comfortable and he's cold and his arms are empty. He rolls out of bed, stumbling a little as he goes out to the hallway. He just needs a glass of water. A glass of water, some Tylenol for his headache and then he will sleep like something very good at sleeping for –

Kris's bedroom door opens to reveal Kris standing in a golden rectangle, loose pants hanging low on his hips to show off a light dusting of hair around his belly button and perfect abs. "Adam?"

Adam swallows and forces himself to keep his eyes up. "I couldn't sleep. I was just... getting a drink."

Kris rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "Do you want –?" he knocks the door open a little further. The bed they share is big and one half is rumpled from where Kris has been lying and Adam is inside the room before he's woken himself up enough to think.

Kris is the same size as Brad which shouldn't help, but does. This room is darker, there's no shaft of light to show Kris's hair or Kris's shoulders and nothing to stop Adam from wrapping his arms tight around his husband and pretending it's someone else.

He sleeps.

*

He wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, bright light coming through the cracks at the edges of velvet curtains and an indent next to him where Kris has already got up and gone. He reaches out to touch it, feeling the slight warmth. If he closes his eyes he can remember the feel of Kris pressed against him, all the ways it felt wrong and the tiny ways it felt right.

Kris is the same size as Brad, has short hair like Brad, murmurs 'love you,' when he sleeps in a Southern drawl like Brad.

The shower is every bit as amazing as it was the day before, pounding on his back like a fucking waterfall, and the only drawback is that he has to use some shitty supermarket brand shampoo because apparently Kris was the only person who kept secret shampoo reserves and he donates all his fucking hair product money to charity.

Adam runs his fingers through his hair, then lets them slide down his body to his cock thinking of Brad – Brad from 2008, not the fucker who hangs around these days – Brad's lips and his hands and the way he smiles. The way they have sex after a fight, pressed up against a wall all violence and biting and false promises that it won't happen again, it'll never happen again. Holding Brad close night after night, twisted to avoid the places where the mattress is more like rocks.

The way Brad looked the last time Adam saw him: eyes downcast, leaving to be with someone else and still so fucking perfect.

*

Kris isn't downstairs and hasn't left a note so Adam assumes he's at the studio or with the dog or anywhere else but it doesn't matter because Adam doesn't care. There's leftover Chinese in the fridge which Adam reheats because he is a weak asshole who apparently hasn't had sex with anyone but Kris Allen in seven fucking years so what's even the point of trying?

There's a laptop on the table and he turns that on, flicking the television on while he waits for it to start up. There's nothing on the first channel he's looking at and he has no idea how Kris got Gossip Girl, so he hits play on the DVD section of the remote and thankfully American idol starts up without any problems.

Someone called _KLAllen_ is logged in to the computer. Adam stares at the password box for a long moment then types _'Krisallen'_ which doesn't work, but does bring up the prompt ' <3'. Adam stares at it for a long moment then swallows his distaste and types _'Adamlambert.'_

It doesn't work. Adam isn't sure whether to be glad or disappointed. He tries ' _Adam_ ' and _'Lambert_ ' and _'AMLambert'_ but none of them work either and he's starting to worry that it could lock him out and then Kris would know that he's been trying to break in.

One last try, and it's clear now that Kris has actually put some thought into this password so there could be letters or numbers. It could be his family, which Adam knows nothing about. It could be the fucking dog or any of their friends or –

He remembers something Allison said to him, and types _'Kradam'_ purely on a whim.

The screen goes black and for a moment he thinks he's broken it and Kris is going to kill him but then all the icons start popping up and a background image of Adam in a hoodie and tattered jeans with a white dog standing on his lap.

Adam is laughing, pushing the dog's head sideways to get them both into the shot. He's not wearing make-up and the paint on his fingernails is chipped but he's _laughing_ like he's never been happier, like he couldn't _imagine_ being happier.

Of course it's a terrible photo. The light is wrong and he's not wearing make-up and he looks even fatter than he really is but –

He hits a web browser, opening it across the full screen to hide the picture from view. Three tabs open instantly. Facebook, the mysterious 'twitter' and google mail.

Twitter seems to be simple. He's signed in as @KrisAllen and apparently the last thing he said was _'Finally home in L.A. and the bf is sick. Damn you, @adamlambert!'_

Adam doesn't want to think about what that means, so he hits @replies. Mostly people going on about @KrisAllen and @AdamLambert and how awesome they are. Several people comment on Kradam.

 _'So @adamlambert gets 'sick' and has to stay inside right after @krisallen comes back from tour #winkwink'_

Adam closes the tab. So it's not enough that all his friends know he's married, strangers on the internet do too. Facebook has grown into some kind of ad filled monstrosity so he closes that too and focuses on Kris's email. There are a handful of emails from people asking to collaborate and asking how Adam is doing. There's a fucking _email_ from Adam's dad which reads like him and Kris are best friends as well as Kris and Adam's mom. It kind of makes Adam want to run for the hills.

There's an email from Brad. Why the fuck is Adam's ex on email terms with his fucking husband?

 _'Why haven't you told him about S and D? Are you going to?'_

Kris has replied to that one, the time stamp puts it at this morning, some time before Adam woke up.

 _'I could either say 'because I don't want to confuse him' or 'because I am a jealous, possessive bitch'. And I don't know. Maybe he'll just remember and everything will be okay. You know he kissed Tommy yesterday? Am I really that paranoid in wanting to keep Drake away?'_

Adam reads it twice then reaches into his pocket to dig out the phone he still isn't sure how to use. He finds the contacts list after much aimless button pressing and scrolls through to find – yeah – he totally has a 'Drake' on file and there's a picture of a guy he almost recognizes.

He hits call.

*

Kris comes through the front door an hour or so later, panting and slightly damp with sweat. He lifts his T-shirt to wipe his face, giving Adam a spectacular view of the abs he is trying so hard to give up. They're good abs. If Adam wasn't in love with someone else –

He pushes that thought down and focuses on the TV where someone who looks a whole lot like him is hugging Kris in response to the announcement that he lost.

"You're good," Adam says. "I just don't understand how you won."

The front door shuts and Adam glances back to see Kris drop his shirt, the old look of 'you're not who I thought you were' back in his eyes. "I've heard that before," he says, with a smile that is clearly false since a moment later her adds. "Never from you, but still." He kicks off his shoes by the door. "Are you okay?" he asks, though his tone implies a completely different question.

"No," Adam says. "I still don't remember you." He throws a glance up that hopefully says 'and we're not talking about last night because it didn't happen'. "And I don't remember any of the things they were talking about yesterday or any of the people in the photos and is that our dog on your desktop background?" because if that was the puppy Adam does _not_ want to see it full grown.

"That's his mom," Kris says, keeping his distance as he heads to the kitchen. "Have you had breakfast? Is there anything you wanted to do today?"

"I'm going shopping," Adam says, checking the time on his phone. "Drake's picking me up any minute."

Kris freezes in the entrance to the kitchen, fingers tight on the doorframe. "Drake?" he says, with a completely fake nonchalance. "Do you even remember him?"

Adam can vaguely remember a figure hovering on the edge of their friendship group, hanging at the same clubs who was hot, looked kind of like Brad and only had good things to say about Adam. When he'd called Drake he'd found out that they dated for nearly a year and Adam hadn't actually been with Kris and Kris alone for the last seven years.

It wasn't Brad, but it would do. "Enough," Adam says. "I need to restock the bathroom and you don't know a thing about hair products so I called him this morning."

"Drake," Kris says again, as Adam's phone buzzes with a text.

 _'Im outside, cnt get past the paps. C u in a min. xDx'_

Adam pauses the TV before Kris can start singing that dreadful winners song that does his voice no favours. Kris is still in the entrance to the kitchen, hanging onto the wood as though it's some kind of life raft.

"We're going out after," Adam says. "Don't wait up." He grabs his jacket from the back of the sofa and is halfway to the door.

"I love you," Kris throws out, fast and desperate.

Adam half turns to see Kris still standing in the kitchen entrance holding an empty mug like a shield and looking at him as though Adam just said 'I am going to have hot sex with my alleged ex boyfriend' which is – well, Adam hadn't actually said that. Not outright.

"I don't know you," Adam says. "I don't know you and I had to read your emails to find out you've been keeping things from me and that is _not okay._ "

"You stayed last night." Kris lets go of the door frame, but his hands are still shaking. "Why would you do that if you hate me so fucking much?"

If Kris has ever sworn before, Adam can't remember it. "Because I couldn't sleep. Because I was cold and lonely. Because I was tired as fuck and I wanted something familiar and because I could _pretend you were Brad._ "

Kris crumples, stumbling back against the wall, mouth opening and closing without a sound.

Adam shuts the front door behind him.

*

"Are you okay?"

L.A. looks different. Shinier and older at the same time, and every time he sees a landmark he knows all he can think about is all the ways it's unfamiliar. "No."

He can feel the car wobble a little as Drake takes his eyes off the road to look over at him. "What's wrong?"

Kris's face – not even disappointed, just broken – utterly shattered like... like Adam doesn't even know. "I don't know," he says helplessly because everything – he assumed he'd been cheating or he'd been doing something to ruin their relationship and surely Kris had known that they weren't perfect because nothing is perfect. "I can't _remember_."

And that's the problem. He can't remember all the ways his life was fucked up and people keep telling him things that are too good to be true and he didn't _choose this_ , this isn't his life.

But fuck, Kris's _face._

"Where do you want to go?" Drake asks, turning down a side street apparently at random. "Are we still shopping?"

"I'm not going to sleep with you."

There is a long moment with just the honk of car horns and the rumble of the engine, then Drake pulls in at the side of the road and stops the car. "Was that ever the plan?" he asks, his voice light enough that Adam could pretend like – no – it had never been a plan, never been so much as an option.

"I don't know," he says and his voice is faint even to his own ears. "I don't know anything anymore."

And suddenly he's crying. He couldn't say when it started or what exact thought triggered it but his shoulders are shaking with genuine sobs and – God –tears are spilling over his hands and he can't, he just can't...

"I don't know who I am," he says. "God, I'm scared I'm so fucking scared all the time and there's this whole world that I don't understand and I can't –" he chokes off as Drake reaches over to rub a hand against his shoulder in slow, warm circles.

"It's okay," Drake says, reaching into the back for a box of tissues. "Whatever you're feeling, it's okay."

Adam shakes his head. "It's not okay. You didn't see his face, it's not _fucking_ okay. He's going to leave and hate me and I'll never find out how I... why I... I loved him. Oh god, fuck, I loved him and I married him and I don't understand and I _can't remember_." He wants to smash something, wants to throw bottles out the window and hit _something_ but there's nothing to destroy, no enemy to defeat, just his own head and seven _years_ of life gone in an instant.

"It's messed up," Drake agrees gently. "But you can't live in the messed up time forever. At some point you have to get over it. Stand up and say, 'Here's what we're going to do now.'" His fingers brush damp strands of hair off Adam's face. "Do you want to go home?"

Adam closes his eyes and thinks of going back, pushing open that door and seeing Kris's face again. Thinks of trying to find some way to explain, to say, _'It was the truth but I'm still sorry it hurt you and I can lie to you if you want, I can do whatever you want'_ or even the bigger picture, _'I just needed something to fight against because I don't know how to deal with this – don't know how_ anyone _could deal with this – and you were_ there, _you were just_ there.'

"No." He pulls out a handful of tissues, wiping the dampness of his face. "Not yet."

Drake taps his fingers against the steering wheel. "We can't stay here forever."

Right. They can't stay here. He can't go home until he's worked out how to look Kris in the eye ever again. He can't go to Brad's because Cassidy will be there and anyway Brad hates him. He wonders briefly if his mom is in LA, but of course she's best friends forever with Kris and if he tells her what he's done she'll –

He doesn't want to see the look on her face either. He just needs time, time with someone who will hold him without judging, who will let him talk without trying to convince him of all of Kris's virtues and how he should just go back and force himself to fit into a life that doesn't feel like his own.

He looks sideways at Drake, brushes the hair off his face and sits up slowly. He can hold himself together a little longer. "Do you know where Clarence is?"

Drake frowns and Adam's tentative control is stretched slightly closer to breaking point. "Clarence?"

"My puppy," Adam says, trembling again but not crying – damn it – he isn't going to cry again. "I want to see my puppy."

*

Drake does not know where Adam's puppy is and a quick google maps search vetoes the idea of checking every pet shop in Los Angeles. Adam pushes his phone into Drake's hands with instructions to call his mother and rests his head between his knees.

"I'm sorry," he says to the leather of the car seat. "This probably wasn't what you were expecting."

Drake ruffles his hair with one hand, holding the phone up to his ear with the other. "You called me this morning to tell me that you'd forgotten the last seven years; you didn't recognize your husband, but you'd just found out he was lying to you; you didn't know the last time you'd had sex and you were out of hair product. I didn't bother to come up with any expectations." He is smiling and Adam just about manages to hiccough a laugh.

"Hello Mrs Lambert?" Drake says, holding up a hand to hush Adam. "Yes it's Drake. Yes, he's in the car with me but no I don't think he wants to – he's a bit messed up."

Adam manages another hysterical sob of a laugh for the understatement of the fucking century.

"No, I don't know about Kris. I think they had a fight." Adam can just about hear the next words down the phone, which means his mom must be shouting her face off. "Hey," Drake snaps. "I'm a neutral party here. I don't know what the fuck is up with Kristopher, but I know Adam is barely holding himself together so right now I'm going to let him do whatever the hell he thinks he needs to to calm down. Well if he wanted to talk to you he wouldn't have given me the phone so –"

Adam holds out his hand. Drake frowns for a moment, then passes the cell across and Adam lifts it to his ear in time to hear the end of "-and don't you think you can tell me how to deal with my son since you clearly didn't have a clue after –"

"Hey mom," Adam rasps.

"Adam? Honey, is that you? Tell me where you are and I'll come pick you up. We can talk about this, I can call Kris. I can't imagine how you must be feeling but I promise we can work this out."

"Do you know where my puppy is?"

There is a long pause with nothing but static coming down the line. "The address should be in your phone, Adam, but I don't think – you and Kris need to talk. Just let me come and get you and then you can come stay with me until he starts answering his phone and –"

"Soon," Adam says. "Soon I can – I'll fix everything but I just need time to think. I love you." He hangs up on her and thanks heaven that his iPhone has a search function because he is scrawling the pet shop address down on a scrap of paper a minute later.

He turns his phone off and throws it into the back seat, passing the address to Drake. "Why does everyone else I know hate you?"

Drake programs the address into his sat-nav and pulls out before answering. "The same reason you called when you thought you wanted to have quick sex. Because they know I would, if you asked me to."

*

The pet shop is a small place in the back end of LA, the polar opposite of all the dog salons where the celebrities go to buy their purse dogs and their overly groomed Chihuahuas. Drake pulls up outside, leaning forward to try and see in through the window. "Do you want me to come in with you?"

"No. I'm – I don't know how long I'll be. If you want to leave, that's fine. I can call someone if –"

Drake leans into the back of the car to pick up Adam's phone. "I'll stay nearby," he says. "You need a ride, a shield, a shoulder to cry on? Call me."

Adam nods, snatching a few more tissues before sliding his phone into his pocket and reaching for the door. "The email I read – it talked about D and S. Who's S?"

"Sauli Koskinen," Drake says. "Finnish, blond, amazing. There were photos, you were both open about the whole relationship, he was cool with the paps being everywhere. People thought it was real, I thought it was real. Hell, the way you talked about him even you thought it was real."

Adam doesn't recognize the name even slightly. "What happened?"

"News got out that Kris Allen was back on the market and suddenly Sauli was out of the picture. Completely. Like he'd never been a fucking option." Drake shrugs and leans across to open Adam's door. "I think really, it was Kris all along."

Adam sniffs and wipes his eyes clear for the final time. "But you would've slept with me anyway."

Drake leans back in his seat and laughs. "I never shared your scruples, Adam. Now, go play fetch like your life depends on it."

Adam manages a half genuine smile and climbs out the car. "Thank you."

*

His puppy is asleep when the shop assistant unlocks the large cage to let Adam sit inside with it. "It used to have company," the man explained. "But then all its siblings were picked up, and you had to delay your adoption. We're trying to find some other pups to put him with, in case the situation carries on much longer."

"Right." The puppy is smaller than he had been imagining, a ball of white and black fur curled up on the floor, head resting on its from paws. "Can I sit with him? For a little while?"

"Of course, sir." The assistant slides the padlock key off the ring and pushes it up into the lock. "Call me if you need anything."

Adam ducks into the cage, which is about half his height, and sits on a vaguely clean looking patch next to Clarence's head. The puppy looks so tiny – like a toy – that he hardly dares to breathe as he rests the flat of his hand on its flank, feeling the warmth of its body and the slow movements of its chest as it breathes.

It doesn't seem like another stupid emblem of his so-called 'perfect life' anymore. It's just a tiny little creature left alone in a big cage because they couldn't take it home.

It stirs, head lifting up sleepily and tongue flicking out to lick Adam's hand. It's rough and damp and the puppy is blinking up at him with big blue eyes. Adam moves his hand back a little, and Clarence catches it with a paw no bigger than Adam's thumb, looking at him as if begging him not to go.

"Hello Clarence," Adam says, his voice still rough around the edges but still enough to make the puppy's ears perk up. "Do you remember me?

Clarence yips and licks Adam's hand again. His fur is softer than anything Adam has touched, and his tail wags fast enough that it seems in danger of dropping off at any moment.

"I suppose you do." Adam swallows, stroking slowly down Clarence's back. "I wonder – do you wish I was the Adam you know? Or are all Adams pretty much the same to you?"

Clarence rolls onto his back so Adam can rub his belly. "Pretty much the same then," he says, curving his hands around Clarence's middle to lift the puppy into his lap where Clarence promptly tries to bite his nose.

Maybe they didn't buy the puppy so they could keep up some elaborate charade about how perfect their marriage is, Adam finds himself thinking as he distracts Clarence from his nose by letting the puppy sink tiny teeth into his finger. Maybe they just... wanted a puppy.

"How come you can't tell the difference?" he asks Clarence's tail. "Everyone else knows I'm not who I should be. Can't you smell 'wrong' on me or something?"

Clarence turns on the spot, falls on his face, then rises unsteadily to his feet and props his paws on Adam's jacket so he can lick Adam's chin. Adam wraps his arms around the tiny form as tightly as he dares, burying his face in Clarence's fur. "Why can't it be that easy for everyone? Why can't it be that easy for me?"

The door from the shop opens and Adam looks up, dropping Clarence back into his lap and wiping his eyes with the back of one hand. Surely they aren't kicking him out already. He's a rock star and it's his puppy to do whatever he likes with.

"He's just down here," the assistant says. "Mr Lambert is already in there with him."

Adam looks around in time to see Kris freeze, halfway round the corner, looking at him. He's changed out of the sweaty clothes he was wearing that morning and into old jeans and a plaid shirt. He's holding a chew bone toy in his left hand and there is a thin strip of pale skin where his wedding ring isn't.

The shop assistant glances from Adam's recoil to Kris's unreadable face. "You weren't expecting to meet here?"

Adam closes his arms tighter around Clarence to hide the puppy from the look in Kris's eyes.

"Could you leave us, please?" Kris asks, keeping his voice calm but not looking away from Adam.

The shop assistant retreats, closing the door to the back room behind him. Adam tenses, waiting for Kris to shout or attack or do _something_.

"We argue, and this is where we both come running." Kris lets out a low, broken laugh and slumps down on the concrete floor. "Well, now you know why we bought a puppy."

Adam swallows. "What do we argue about?"

Kris's eyes flick to his face. "You're asking me that _now_? Is that really the most important thing?"

Adam shrugs. "Everything so far has been 'your life is perfect and awesome and perfectly awesome' and no life is actually like that. We're both singers, we tour a lot, the paparazzi are camped outside our house, there is _no way_ we can be perfect." He opens his arms a little to let Clarence run over and lick Kris's hands in greeting. "So tell me about us and don't leave out the stupid stories or the shit we've done. Make me believe it."

Kris strokes Clarence's head absently with one hand and seems to be thinking for a long moment. "Okay," he says eventually, reaching into his pocket to pull out two wedding rings which he tosses onto the floor between them. "Okay."

*

The bone that Kris brought squeaks every time Clarence bites it. The puppy is lying down between them, his tail resting on Adam's leg while Kris strokes his head lightly. Every so often Clarence glances up as though he can sense the tension between them. Adam picks up the rings.

"We met on idol," Kris says, presumably talking to Adam though he doesn't look away from Clarence's head. "My first roommate went home and they sent me to stay with you. We used to talk about our songs, help each other out, after the first week you explained that I was just your type and you had something of a crush on me." He glances up. "Possibly due to a slight resemblance to other boyfriends you had had in the past."

There is no accusation in his voice, but Adam feels like the lowest fucking piece of shit anyway. "Would it help if I said I was sorry?"

Kris twists his fingers through Clarence's hair. "Were you telling the truth?"

Adam considers lying, but changes his mind. "Yes."

Kris nods, as though he didn't expect anything less. "Then no." He hesitates for a moment, fingers coiling and uncoiling while the bone squeaked. "I wasn't... I mean, I was thinking of you but not..." he trails off. "My Adam. I was thinking of my Adam. So we were both just looking for something familiar and... I'm not going to make you stay married if you're not happy." He swallows, adding in an undertone. "Now why does it feel like I've said that before?"

Adam touches the rings together with a soft metallic clink. He's not happy, that's the one thing he is sure of, but he's prepared to admit that it isn't entirely Kris's fault. Or Kris's fault at all, really. "Okay," he says, because he isn't sure what else to say and Kris is waiting for an answer. He leans forward to stroke Clarence's back so he doesn't have to see what effect this has on Kris. "So we shared a room and talked about music," he says, retreating back into Kris's story. "We were competing, why would we help each other?"

"Because you're actually a nice person when you're not –" Kris stops. "You were calmer, happier, mellower."

"Why would I be mellower?"

"You weren't fighting with your boyfriend every night." He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "You were kind of dating Drake, and I think you were happy enough with that."

"Kind of dating?"

"Drake has flexible views on things like commitment." The bone squeaks as Clarence attacks the end with determination. Kris resumes stroking. "We talked a lot, you told me all about your family and Drake and how you hated broadway because you wanted to be yourself. I told you about the girl next door, about making a relationship last even though the bad times. I never expected to win."

"You won't get anywhere with that attitude."

Kris looks up again, a soft glint in his eyes seeming to say 'and how many grammy awards do you remember winning?' "That's what they kept telling me," he says. "I wasn't in their pre-picked list of people who were allowed to be on American Idol. I thought I was going to go home every week and every time I came back to my room after performance night and started packing my things, you were there."

Adam looks at him and tries to put himself in his own shoes. On a talent show, sharing a room with a hot, humble guy who had an amazing voice and got bitched at week after week for being himself. "What did I do?"

Kris laughs softly. "Oh, the usual. Told me I was amazing, better than they gave me credit for, an artist. You said if they heard my original work they would hire me on the spot. You fed me enough chocolate to feed an army, hugged me when I needed to be hugged, said what I needed to hear. On top four night, you told me you loved me."

Adam had been starting to relax, but now he tenses up again. Kris has stopped talking, reaching down to play tug-of-war with Clarence as though expecting Adam to freak out or have some kind of reaction.

Adam doesn't freak out. He clenches his fists and counts to ten and reminds himself that Kris isn't the enemy, Kris hasn't done anything wrong, he is being irrational and childish and stupid. He swallows, unclenches his hands and manages to speak normally. Of course, by this time the pause has been too long for Kris not to notice, but hopefully he'll get points for the thought. "Is that when all this started?"

Kris shrugs, tugging the bone all the way out of Clarence's teeth. "In a way, I suppose. We were both with other people and I'd let you assume I was straight but that was the first time we acknowledged that there was something between us. Something more." He holds the bone up and Clarence leaps for it, tiny puppy teeth trying to find purchase on the plastic. "When it was the two of us at the end, we laughed and promised that it didn't matter who won. Friends for life, you said."

Adam's eyes are dragged away from the puppy onto Kris's face because – uh – that didn't actually make sense. "Why would we be friends? I said I was in love with you, that would have changed something. We would be awkward or suspicious or you'd be waiting for me to jump you in your sleep or –"

"You know I'm a Christian?" Kris interrupts. "I'm a Christian from Arkansas and I thought I was straight. You told me you were gay as though you expected me to stone you to death, you told me about your crush then waited for me to run away screaming. Pictures leaked of you in drag and you threw the magazine at the side of my head then stood in the doorway in case I started lecturing you about all your sins." He drops the bone on the floor and Clarence pounces on it with the loudest squeak yet. "By the time you were confessing your love, you had stopped expecting me to care. It was like one of those movies you love, a whirlwind romance on a talent show. Two opponents, coming together and falling in love in spite of all the world trying to keep them apart." He laughs softly. "Except you were with someone and I was with someone so in the end it was just an 'imagine what we could have been.'"

It all sounds perfectly possible. Kris is Adam's type, Adam likes talking about music and if he was really over Brad then maybe he could fall in love again. "Who were you with?"

Kris's eyes dart up and for an instant Adam thinks he's about to be brushed off or lied to. Then Kris closes his mouth and thinks for a moment. "I was married."

If Adam wasn't sitting down inside a fucking dog cage, he would get to his feet. As it is he has to settle for leaning forward threateningly. "Married? What the fuck happened to 'completely' and 'unconditionally' and fucking 'forever'?" God, he's made such a big fucking deal about Adam being so un-fucking-faithful and now he drops the fucking bomb that he'd cheated on his fucking wife before like surely he must know that Adam hates fucking hypocrites and cheaters.

Kris pulls Clarence into his lap as though worried Adam might stand on him. "I was married," he says, not raising his voice but keeping it firm. "To a girl called Katy. I knew her from home, we lived in a small town and we were best friends. Dating seemed like the obvious next step in high school, marriage seemed like the next step after college." Clarence squirms in his arms, twisting his head back to try and get out for his bone. "We'd hardly tied the knot before I had to go away for idol. After that I was touring and recording and touring and we were never really together so we didn't have a chance to realize what we were missing."

Adam can't help noticing that Kris is tracing the ring of pale skin on his hand as he speaks, as though recalling an old ring. "Which was?"

Kris sighs. "We were best friends and far too late we realized that best friends was all we ever wanted. I fell in love with you, she fell in love with someone else and we knew that what we felt for each other – it was never the same." He lets Clarence go, the puppy running to snatch up the bone then scale Adam's legs to end up settled in Adam's lap – triumphant. "Her name is Katy, we're still friends and we will always be friends – completely, unconditionally and forever, as you might say – but we agreed to split so we could try again, so we could get it right."

That should be easy to disbelieve because breakups aren't like that. They aren't simple with two parties both understanding and going along with it, but Adam finds himself looking into Kris's eyes and he can't quite bring himself to dismiss it. "That seems too easy."

"You were the one who taught me to follow my heart and to always be honest. Katy and I both wanted the same thing and were too scared to admit it. When news of my divorce hit the papers, you came to see me."

"I left Sauli," Adam says, remembering what Drake says. "I left Sauli the moment you were single."

Kris glances down at Clarence, curled up in Adam's lap. "Yeah," he says, with something like regret. "I didn't ask you to, you just – you were supposed to be going to Finland with him but you said you had to see me and the two of you fought and he said you had to choose which of us you were going to put first."

"And I chose you." It's not a question. Adam knows perfectly well what he's like when he's in love. "We dated, got married, lived happily ever after and bought a puppy because we fight all the time."

"Something like that." Kris smiles ruefully and inches forward, keeping one eye on Adam to check that it's okay for him to reach out and touch Clarence's head where it rests against Adam's knee. "We both tour a lot. Half of the year the house is empty, the other half one of us is living in it. We both hate being alone." Clarence licks his hand sleepily. "I worry that you work too hard, you worry that I don't get enough exposure. I'm terrible at figuring out time zones so I always wake you up at four in the morning. You stopped kissing Tommy after marrying me and I worry that it affects your album sales."

Adam wants to laugh, but Kris's face is perfectly serious. "You worry that I'm not kissing someone else?"

"It's what people know you for," Kris says, face turning a little pink. "I don't know – you gave up a lot to marry me and I always thought... I was waiting for the day you realized that it wasn't me. The day you looked at Brad and noticed that I'm nothing like him. I'm not that funny or that exuberant and if that's what you look for..."

Kris is still leaning forward to stroke the puppy's head and it's so easy for Adam to reach out and brush his fingers through Kris's hair, following the curve of his ear. It's worth fighting the unfamiliarity for the way Kris glances up at him and smiles. Nervous, awkward and blushing like a fucking schoolgirl.

"And then you proposed and I realized I should have trusted you to know what you want." He reaches up to touch Adam's cheek with his rough fingers and his smile. "We're married, we fight about stupid shit but I love you and you... well, it's always been perfect enough for me."

Adam leans in to kiss him. Kris's eyes flick closed, his fingers press harder on Adam's cheek and his mouth opens, warm and sweet. Adam's tongue moves, tracing Kris's mouth in a way that feels almost familiar and his second hand is reaching for Kris's shoulder to pull him closer.

The bone squeaks and Kris pulls back, glancing down to check that they haven't squashed Clarence. The puppy has raised his head a little, and is eying them reproachfully. "Not in front of the puppy?" Kris says.

Adam laughs, and doesn't pull his hand back. "I think," he says. "I could get used to this."

Kris's smile falls as quickly as it came and he sits back, Adam's hand dropping from his cheek. "You don't... of course you don't, that's crazy." That fucking look of disappointment is back on his face and as much as he tries to hide it with a smile it still makes Adam burn inside.

What? He wants to demand. So I'm not good enough?

Kris can clearly read Adam's face as well as Adam can read his. "Shit, I didn't mean. This is good, progress is good, it's just my conditioned-by-Disney mind had all these thoughts about true love's kiss and –"

Adam picks up Clarence around the middle, sending him into a whirlwind of tail and legs as he tries to fight his way back to his bone. "I should go." He drops Clarence on the floor of the cage, tossing the bone down after him. "If I remember, I'll probably call you."

"Adam." Kris is standing between Adam and his way out, but he moves aside enough that Adam can get out of the cage and stand up. "I didn't mean that, I'm sorry." He takes a step closer, half pinning Adam against the cage and reaching up to touch his face again. "Can we just forget the last five minutes?"

Adam knocks the hand away. "I'm not forgetting anything. Not again, not ever." He turns away, but doesn't leave. "I'm trying, Kris. I'm doing the best I know how and I'm sorry if that isn't good enough."

The door to the backroom opens and Leila steps through, pushing the shop assistant out the way. "And don't you ever tell me I'm not allowed to see my son's puppy again –" she stops, looking up at where Kris and Adam are standing. "Adam? I came to pick you up, but if the two of you have made up I suppose you'll be going back with Kris."

Kris touches Adam's shoulder. "You should go with her," he says softly.

Adam turns. "I don't want to give up," he says. "I married you and I'm starting to understand it and I can be better, I can try harder, I can do whatever you want."

Kris shakes his head. "You need time to work out who you are, and you can't do that with me breathing down your neck waiting for your memories to return." He stands on his tiptoes to place a chaste kiss on Adam's cheek. "I'll visit tomorrow."

Adam swallows and touches Kris's hand, sliding the smaller wedding ring back onto Kris's finger. "I'll see you," he says, then turns and walks towards the doorway.

When he looks back, Kris is twisting the gold band around his finger with the beginnings of a smile.

*

The house is new but the collection of mismatched ornaments, Hanukkah presents, and photos of Adam and Neil as young children is exactly the same. Adam moves from school play photo to school play photo, looking at faces caught on film the same way he always remembered. "Where's Neil?"

His mom looks over his shoulder at the pictures. "He's in San Diego, but he sends his love and told me to whack you on the head if you didn't stop being an idiot." She reaches past him to pick up a photo frame at the end of the line, turning it away before he can see it.

"What's that?" it's in an understated silver frame that she presses to her chest to hide the photo from view.

"It doesn't matter," she says firmly. "You're here to relax and stop worrying yourself into collapse about everything. It's good that you're talking to Kris, but you should never have gone home with him. If I knew what that hospital was thinking," she shakes her head. "Come on. Tomorrow you can worry about Kris and your memory and all the things you think you're obliged to do. Today is a day for hot chocolate and Mario Kart."

"I'm not twelve years old staying home from school sick," Adam points out, following her through to the kitchen. "I don't think hot chocolate and videogames will cut it."

Leila laughs. "You think I never knew you were just skipping school to avoid the things they called you? You've never been sick a day in your life. Hot chocolate and games is a tried and tested cure for when you're upset, whether you're twelve or thirty three."

Adam sits up on the table. "So, do you have a husband or significant other I should know about?"

"I do not, and get off my table."

The hot chocolate is just as good as he remembers.

*

"So," Leila says, passing a plate of mac-and-cheese across the table to Adam. "Now you know what I've been doing in the house alone all day for the last seven years. Playing videogames."

Adam laughs. "I thought you spent them learning to cook," he says, raising his fork up for her to see. "What happened to TV dinners and take-out?"

Leila's smile fades a little, her eyes flicking down to her own plate. "Kim taught me a few things," she says softly, glancing up to see Adam's puzzled expression. "Kimberly Allen. Kris's mom."

Oh. Adam rests his fork back on the edge of the plate and scans the room for some other topic of conversation, but unless he can suddenly come up with a monologue about how the spider plant in the corner is wilting, he's going to have to face the elephant in the room. "You're friends with –" he starts, but that sounds too accusing because why wouldn't she be friends with Kris's... with Adam's mother in law. "Kris didn't mention... is she nice?"

Leila hesitates, her fork inches from her mouth, then puts it down on the plate again. "Are you getting on with Kris?" she asks, cautious, as though she expects him to blow up at any moment. "It looked like the two of you were talking when I arrived but I admit when you called me from Drake's phone I panicked a little." She scoops up another forkful of pasta and, when it's clear Adam is just going to sit staring at his food in silence, prompts, "Why were you with him?"

Adam is starting to think he could totally talk about spiderplants all day. For many days. Spiderplants are a brilliant conversation topic. He chews his mouthful as slowly as he can get away with, but eventually has to swallow.

He can't tell his mother that he called Drake to hurt Kris. She likes Kris and doesn't like seeing people hurt and she would _expect better_. Her face is guilting him enough from inside his head, he doesn't need to see it in person. "I don't know," he tells his plate because he can't lie to her face either. "I met up with Kris at the pet shop. We talked – he told me about how we met. He was married before me."

"Katy," she nods. "A lovely girl. She had a few auditions in LA when you two were both touring. She slept in my spare room."

Adam looks up from his plate to see her smiling at him as though she knows exactly what he's been thinking. "Whatever Kris told you about their divorce," she says. "He was telling the truth. You're not a home wrecker, Adam. You and Katy are friends."

"Kris is friends with Brad, I'm friends with his ex wife. Nothing about this makes any sense."

Leila reaches across the table to press her hand against his. "You'll find a place in this world, Adam. With Kris or without him."

It's strange, Adam has always said that he's not going to let anyone dictate his life for him, that he'll forge his own path and make his own decisions; but this feels like the first time someone has given him permission to make his own choice. Possibilities seem to open up before him and only one of them has Kris in.

Leila smiles, leaning back in her chair. "It's only your life if you choose it, haven't I always told you that?"

Adam looks up at her and smiles back. "But you think I should choose Kris?" he prompts, to make her laugh.

She does, rocking forward on her chair as she does so. "What I want is neither here nor there."

"So that's a yes then," Adam pushes, still smiling. He can do whatever he wants. It's like a huge weight of expectations has suddenly been lifted from his shoulders.

He kind of wants to call Kris and tell him about it.

*

Adam still has difficulty sleeping. The bed is new but the room is full of boxes that Adam can remember packing away into the back room of their old house because they wouldn't fit in his new LA apartment. Apparently he still hasn't got around to moving them into his house, but he doesn't feel all that guilty because there are boxes of Neil's stuff and boxes of his mom's stuff that just haven't been unpacked.

He knows about the boxes in great detail because he's been poking around this room for about two hours now, waiting to be tired enough that he drops off as soon as his head hits the pillow instead of constant shifting and itching, reaching for a person who isn't there.

They'd watched TV after dinner with big bowls of chocolate ice cream, Leila had downloaded the entire first series of this show called _Glee_ which was crazy and hilarious and Adam could hardly believe it had ever been green lit for a pilot let alone turned into a cultural phenomenon spawning three movies and a spin off show.

Adam sits back on the bed, passing an old singing medal from hand to hand, and wishes he could go downstairs and continue watching until his eyes dropped out and maybe then he could actually sleep. But he'd have to walk past Leila's room to get downstairs and he doesn't want to wake her up because then she'd worry.

He picks up his cell phone from the bed. There's a message from Drake to say he's glad Kris and Adam talked and he hopes Adam is okay, but that's all. Adam would expect a famous singer to get more messages than that – but maybe Kris has arranged for them to go elsewhere.

Kris. Adam slides his thumb back and forth across the screen. Kris is hot and musical and he has that one smile that comes out when Adam does something right. Kris who loved Adam when Adam couldn't love him back, who never left or gave up.

He opens a new text message and is about to start typing when he realizes he has no idea what to say. 'Sorry' seems like such a feeble word and he doesn't even know what he's sorry for. Sorry he got amnesia? Sorry he was an asshole? Sorry he can't just wave one hand and get all his memories back? More than anything, he wants to explain that he gets it now, he can choose and there are all these options open for him – more than he could ever count – but he keeps going back to the one with Kris.

How can he explain that he still wants to go back to 2008, but only because he wants to meet Kris for the first time? He wants to live the story told so economically in Kris's matter-of-fact tones, wants to sit on a hotel bed and hear the knock of his future on the door.

He wants to go to a pet shop after a fight, wants to choose his own puppy, even though he knows he would pick Clarence every single time. Clarence, curled up in a cage at the back of a pet shop in the dark.

 _'we shud get Clarence out asap,'_ he types, forcing himself not to over think, just send and then regretting it almost instantly because he might have woken Kris up and their relationship is tenuous at best so –

His phone buzzes and he looks down. Kris has sent him a photo of the puppy curled up in the crook of his arm on the bed with the caption, _'This Clarence?:) x'_

Adam saves the photo, creating a new album in amongst all the unfamiliar images. He calls it 'now' then pushes all the others into a folder called 'then' where he doesn't have to see them. Then he goes back to the text, staring at the smiling face and the single kiss as though they're a code that he just has to figure out.

Kris picks up on the first ring. "You would not believe," he says. "How often we do this. Unless of course you have your memory back in which case you probably would."

Adam lies back. It's strange, how quickly Kris's voice has become familiar, how easy it always was to associate with comfort. "Who said anything about you? I'm calling for the puppy."

"I see," Kris says solemnly. "Clarence, you have a phone call." There is a moment of static and then Adam can hear rough breathing.

"Hello Clarence," Adam says. "I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to you earlier."

"He was very disappointed with you," Kris says, his voice fainter than before.

Adam swallows and focuses on the dog. "See, Clarence," he says. "I don't like being told what to do. I always believed in forging my own path and then one day I woke up and I was seven years further down my path than I remembered being." He swallows. "Putting me on what looked like someone else's path and it wasn't where I wanted to be, because I wanted to be in the place I chose."

Clarence's breathing is perfectly steady. Adam has a strong suspicion that the puppy is actually asleep, but he presses on anyway. "So I tried to get back to a different bit of path, just because that way it would be my path but instead I just stumbled off the path entirely and into the woods and it took me far too long to realize that I didn't have to step back onto my old path, I could just start again somewhere else."

"Somewhere else," Kris echoes, barely audible.

Adam forces himself not to think about it, to focus on the warm ball of fur and what he had felt like nestles in Adam's lap, on his tiny damp nose and big blue eyes. "And I realized that with all those other paths, even if I stepped back into my old life, it would still be a choice. It would still be my choice." He bites his lip and prays to Kris's God that Kris is still listening. "Could you put your dad back on the line?"

"Hello," Kris says, and his voice is louder but still trembling.

Adam wipes his eyes with the back of one hand. "You say we do this a lot," he says. "So since you've had more practice, I think you should tell me a story."

There is the sound of movement, Adam thinks Kris is lying down. "What kind of story?" Kris asks.

Adam closes his eyes. "The happy kind."

"The happy kind," Kris echoes. "Well, once upon a time there was a dog called Lola who was about to have puppies –"

Adam falls asleep to the sound of Kris's voice in his ear.

*

Kris brings both guitars and the puppy when he visits the following day. He's wearing his wedding ring on one finger but doesn't comment on either its presence or the fact that Adam still isn't wearing his. "Come on," he says, pushing the electric guitar into Adam's hands. "If you don't practice, you'll forget. This isn't like learning _piano_."

"I think when you said my guitar teacher was patient you meant he was determined and irritable and a pain in the ass."

Kris slaps his hand lightly – "Pay attention." Leila laughs and heads into the kitchen to try out the shortbread recipe that Kris brought with him.

"I think we should bake," Adam says. "She's an old woman, she might need help in there. There could be things, things on high shelves that need to be fetched down."

That surprises a laugh out of Kris and Adam feels a surge of triumph. "If you don't start playing now," he says, straightening up with the second guitar in his hands. "I'm going to go in there and tell her you said that."

Adam can't remember, but he's pretty sure he's never played quicker.

*

Kris leaves after lunch, taking the puppy with him but leaving Adam's guitar on the sofa. When Leila runs into the kitchen to grab some shortbread for Kris to take home, Adam kisses him. Just a quick press of lips that nevertheless sets his head racing and his arms tingling.

"Thank you," he says, and he doesn't even know what he's thankful for. For the lesson, for last night, for not giving up.

"When I said I would love you forever," Kris says. "I meant it. It's your choice and whatever you choose, I'll be here."

Adam kisses him again to stop himself from saying, 'It's you, I choose you,' but when he turns around he sees Leila watching them with a smile like she already knows.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Kris says.

"Talk to you later," Adam agrees, and he can see the faint hint of recognition in Kris's eyes that says he knows Adam means another late night phone call.

Adam shuts the door then leans against it with his eyes closed, drawing out the moment before he has to face his mom. "Well?" he asks, keeping his eyes tight shut. "Out with it."

"Nothing," she says, but when Adam peeks he sees she's wearing her 'I am your mother and I know all' smile. "Just thinking about how adorable that puppy is."

"I haven't decided anything."

"Of course you haven't."

*

Kris calls him this time. Adam has barely lain down when his phone buzzes and he touches it to his ear. "I have a puppy here," Kris says. "Who wanted to say something to you."

Adam smiles and closes his eyes. "What did he say?"

"Woof woof," Kris says, his voice slow and lazy like he's already half asleep. "A-woof-woof-woof. Grr, snarl, woof. And he won't be able to come over until tomorrow afternoon."

"Tell him I said 'bark, tail wag, woof woof.' And I'll be waiting for him." Adam is already drifting, like all his body needed was Kris's voice and he could instantly slip into slumber. "Are you going to tell me another story?"

Kris lets out a low, rough laugh. "Once upon a time," he says harshly. "There was a record company who wanted 'two more songs by Friday, Kris. It's a whole _week_ , I'm sure you can do that' and they were assholes and the singer was tired and just wanted to sleep." He doesn't sound tired, he sounds exhausted and Adam kind of wishes he was in that bed – confusion and feelings of entrapment be damned – so he could reach out and pull him close.

"How about you tell me one," Kris offers, quieter.

Adam hesitates because he doesn't have anything to say about his time with Kris and he doesn't know what Kris would regard as happy. Nothing about Brad, that's for sure. "You know all my stories."

Kris yawns. "Tell me one again. It's my turn to pretend I'm listening then fall asleep halfway through like an ungrateful ingrate." He pauses, Adam continues frantically looking through his mind, begging those seven lost years to come flooding back so he can say 'once upon a time a man called Adam met a man called Kris and they fell in love.'

"Clarence wants you to tell a story about Broadway," Kris says. "Well, I'm assuming that's what he means. There's also a tiny chance that he's snoring."

"Nice to know you have such faith in my storytelling," Adam says. "Okay, so once upon a time there was a show on Broadway called the Ten Commandments and the songs were kind of terrible but the lead actor was hot so this young, dashingly handsome singer auditioned and they made him grow his hair which looked terrible but also dye it black which looked completely awesome. His costume was kind of shit, but with the pay he bought these boots."

Adam can still see the boots clearly in his mind's eye, and he describes them in great detail to the tune of Kris's laughter and then he talks about rehearsals and how everyone's heart sank when someone said there was going to be video evidence and eventually Kris's laughs turn to slow steady breathing.

Adam falls asleep without hanging up.

*

He's gritting his teeth to practice guitar scales, wincing at every missed note or buzz of the strings, when Leila sits down next to him with the silver photo frame resting in her hands. "You're getting better," she comments.

"Because that's exactly what Kris will say," Adam says, but he can't help smiling a little at the knowledge that Kris will arrive soon. He's been living with Leila three days now, and Kris has only missed one of them because apparently there's a deadline coming up and he's been rethinking his album thanks to a whole host of new songs written right on the cusp of too late.

Tommy and Allison had come instead and Adam's day of rest had been ruined because apparently both of them played guitar. Adam's fingers were never going to recover but they both seemed pretty awesome so he was prepared to admit that future-him had good taste in friends.

When Adam called Kris that night, he had still been in the studio and had played Adam different remixes of the same song that all sounded pretty much identical until Adam fell asleep without managing to scrounge up an opinion.

"Do I finally get to see the mysterious picture?" Adam asks, deciding that he has no hope of getting this scale right so he should just give up now and try to distract Kris when he comes.

Leila hesitates for a moment, drumming fingerprints into the metal, then pushes it into his lap. Adam turns the frame over slowly, taking in a blue sky, a green field and a crowd of laughing people. Him and Kris are in the middle, both in black suits though Adam's is adorned with glitter and sequins while Kris's is plane save for the white flower in the buttonhole. On Adam's side are his parents, his dad's girlfriend, Brad and Allison in a dark red dress. One Kris's side: two people who must be his parents, a tall man in a suit and a young woman with blonde hair looking stunning in blue.

"Your wedding," Leila says, as though Adam hadn't already guessed. "You each had a best man and a bridesmaid and you took it in turns to walk down the aisle. You wrote your own vows."

Adam wants to ask if she cried, but she looks like she's barely a moment away from weeping now so he's prepared to assume she did.

"I remember there was such a panic because we only had the field for so long and half the space that should have been for guests was taken over by People magazine because they bought the rights to cover the whole ceremony and then the two of you were late and no one could find you anywhere."

Adam tries to come up with reasons he might be late for his own wedding ad draws a blank. "Where were we?"

She laughs and shakes her head. "Distracted, I imagine. I have the video," she says, blowing her nose and pulling herself together. "If you want to see."

*

Kris lets himself in as the vows are starting, crossing to sit on the sofa next to Adam. "Oh," he says, when he sees what Adam is watching. "You found that."

Adam pauses it, looking at the gap between them and wondering if Kris could be convinced to cross it. "You don't like it?"

Kris shrugs his shoulders. "It just doesn't show the important things." He glances sideways at Adam and grins a little. "The 'imperfect bits,' as you would say. The things that made it our wedding and not anyone else's."

Adam turns to face him, pulling his feet up onto the sofa. "Such as?"

Kris laughs, reaching up to rub the back of his neck with one hand. "Such as the fact that you bought eight outfits before deciding on one, and then changed your mind two days before and we had to get all the decorations swapped last minute so that they matched. The fact that I panicked the _night_ before and you took me all the way to Vegas where the priest got halfway through, 'Do you, Kristopher Neil Allen' before I changed my mind and you had to get me all the way home in time to walk down the aisle."

"We were late," Adam says.

"We were late," Kris agrees. "And we had our first dance in a field where your boot got stuck in the mud so most of it was just us swaying from side to side while you tried to pull it out and it was the best day of my life."

*

Brad and Cassidy live in an apartment on the nice side of LA, two blocks from the recording studio where Cassidy records and twenty minutes from the movie studio where Brad is filming. Adam learnt all this from his mom who added, 'And I don't think you should go over there,' at least a hundred times between when Adam asked for the car and when Adam actually drove off.

Cassidy answers the door. He's wearing his art clothes and there's a paint brush pushed behind his ear getting skin toned paint in his hair. "Adam," he says, taking half a step out of the door and pulling it almost closed behind him. "This isn't a good time."

"I know." Adam bounces on his toes because he's been putting this off for nearly a week now. "I need to talk to Brad. Just to talk, I promise."

"Who is it?" comes Brad's voice, light and airy as he wrenches the door wide open, tying the knot on a hot pink bathrobe with both hands. There is a moment of stillness as Brad looks at the knot, Adam looks at Brad and Cassidy looks at Adam.

Brad raises his head and his smile dies. "Adam."

"Can I talk to you?" Adam asks over Cassidy's shoulder. "Please."

Brad hesitates for a moment, then ducks under Cassidy's arm and out the door. "I'll be back in a minute," he says, turning his head deliberately to kiss Cassidy, lips parting as he leans in closer and Cassidy's arms come off the doorframe to wrap around his shoulders –

Adam looks down at his feet and waits patiently until Cassidy steps back inside and the door shuts. Brad is lounging in the doorway, a generous slice of bare chest visible above the robe. "Well," he says, his voice too guarded to hold its old exuberance. "How have you been?"

Adam sits down in the hallway. "I've been working things out. I'm living with my mom, Kris visits. You said we were friends?"

Brad sinks down the wall to sit opposite him, bare legs pressing against Adam's jeans and his grin growing brighter. "We are. Only not friends with benefits because we are both in perfectly satisfying relationships. We are sexually fulfilled. We have found sexual enlightenment."

Adam raises his eyebrows. "Was Cassidy painting you naked?"

Brad positively beams. "You're jealous, I know, we can't all be dating artists." He claps his hands together. "So, you and Kristopher, tell me _more_."

Adam had come with every intention to apologize, to go on bended knee, to prostrate himself at Brad's door and beg him to overlook all the stupid things Adam has ever done so they can be friends again. Instead, he's turning slightly red and not meeting Brad's eyes like they're twelve years old talking about high school crushes. "He's kind of amazing."

"Now, why does it feel like I've had this conversation before – oh – about five hundred times." But he's still grinning like an idiot, so they're probably okay. "Wait, I know, it's because you were totally besotted all through Idol and I made the mistake of telling you beforehand that you could call me about anything. Which you still can, by the way."

"Sometimes I think maybe he's just waiting for me to get my memories back. I mean, I understand that he wants me to remember but what if they never come back? Will I never be good enough?" He looks down at his feet. "I said something – something bad, but also something that was true at the time – and he's been keeping his distance ever since. I don't know how to tell him that it's not true anymore and have him believe it."

Brad looks at him for a long moment, then leans forward to pull him into a tight hug. Adam wraps his arms around Brad's shoulders, feeling the softness of the bathrobe and looking for something familiar which... isn't there. "He loves you," Brad says. "He just needs time to –"

Adam pulls back. "Stand up," he says, using the wall to push himself to his feet. "I need to –" Brad is on his feet and Adam lean in to hug him again. Brad's at the wrong angle, his arms are in the wrong place and it's the same as Adam remembers but it all feels wrong.

He thinks back to the night he slept with Kris, tries to remember if he ever lay with Brad like that and can't come up with a single time. They were always messy sprawls or on opposite sides of the bed or spooning, Brad never nestles against him, his breath against Adam's jaw and –

"I'm an idiot. God, I'm such a fucking idiot." He pulls Brad into one more hug. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being an idiot way back then, I'm sorry for being an idiot now. I hope you and Cass are very happy together and next time I see you you're wearing more clothes but right now I have to go find my husband."

Brad positively glows. "Run."

*

The doorbell is greeted by a cacophony of excited barking from a puppy who seems to have far bigger lungs than could actually fit inside his tiny chest. Adam probably shouldn't have run up the driveway because he's breathless and panting as he leans against the doorframe.

Kris opens the door. The light catches his face and Adam doesn't hesitate before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Kris. It's right, it feels _right_ even though he can't remember doing it before. "I was wrong," Adam says.

Kris takes half a step back, breaking the embrace, and Adam can see the familiar, 'Oh, you don't have your memory back' expression flicker through his eyes. "You were wrong?" he asks, moving back to keep a careful distance between them. "Is that why you went to Brad?"

Leila called Kris. Of course Leila called Kris and Adam is such an idiot.

"It wasn't Brad," Adam says. "Or, I mean, seven years ago it was Brad." Fucking hell, an hour in a traffic jam and he still can't get the words right. "And seven years ago I thought I needed him with me to sleep and seven years ago I was in love with him and I woke up here and I thought it was still seven years ago."

Kris's face is set in disappointment and Adam has done this all wrong. "I know all this," Kris says, just sounding tired. "I was about to come over. Give me a minute and we can drive over to your mom's –"

"That was seven years ago," Adam interrupts. "This is now. And now you're the one I want to hold, you're the one I want to spend time with and you're the one I fought against because somehow I knew you would be the one who wouldn't walk away."

"So you hated me because you knew you would be able to keep hating me for a long time." Kris's fingers are tight on the doorframe. He looks tense and upset and Adam hates it. "Is this supposed to be making this better, because I'm doing the best I know how and –"

"I didn't hate you." Adam shakes his head because he's saying it all wrong and he has never wished he was better with words more than he does right now. "I thought I did because there were all these feelings that I didn't understand so I fought them. God, none of this is coming out right."

Kris looks at him, then steps outside and shuts the door behind him, leaning against it and folding his arms. "Just say what you came here to say."

"Okay." Adam takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment. He reaches into his pocket, running his thumb along the edge of the gold band that still sits in there. "Kristopher Allen. You know how I don't really remember you?"

"I had noticed," Kris comments, but waves his hand in a 'do go on' gesture when Adam glares at him.

Adam swallows and forces himself to look at Kris's face. "You know how I don't remember you," he says again, carefully, choosing his words one at a time. "Would it be alright if I love you anyway?"

Kris just stares at him for a long moment. Somewhere Clarence is barking and a bird is singing and Kris's mouth is open but slowly – agonizingly slowly – twisting into a smile. "Yes," he says, smile goring wider and wider until it could fall off the edges of his face. "I think that would be fine."

Adam kisses him, arms wrapping around his shoulders. It's right and it's perfect and he is going to remember it forever. This moment. Right here, right now.

He reaches one hand into his pocket and slides his wedding ring onto his finger.

***

Adam wakes up in his own bed, and for a disorienting moment he can't remember how he got there. He was drinking, he was drunk and oh _God_ he's done that thing where he forgot the entire night including how he got home and Brad hates driving him around when he's completely wasted so Brad's going to be pissed.

God and his head hurts like a motherfucker. He is _never drinking again_ and there's something he's forgotten... something important.

He reaches up to press the back of his hand against his forehead and the person beside him stirs with a low moan. "Adam?"

Adam rests his hand back on their waist, leaning in to press his forehead against theirs instead. "My head is killing me."

Kris reaches up to press his fingers to Adam's forehead, brushing strands of hair out of his eyes. "If you forget me all over again, I might drive you to Brad's and watch Cass beat you up. Just saying."

It is dark and Adam's head hurts and his husband has gone crazy. Why is it bad things always come in threes? Why? "Forget?"

Kris's eyes snap open like they're on fucking elastic bands. "Adam?" he asks.

"Were you expecting someone else?" Adam asks slowly. "I know I only got back from tour yesterday and it's been a long lonely time without me but I had hoped –"

"Adam," Kris says. "What did you do yesterday?"

He went out drinking. He went out drinking with Brad, Cassidy and the band and there were brightly coloured shots and then he woke up in hospital with two doctors and Brad's lips tasted of strawberries and – "Oh _shit_." He lifts up his hand, turning it towards the light to check his wedding ring is sitting on his hand where it should be. It's like the opposite of waking up from a dream, details slipping in every moment he gets wider awake.

Kris's fingers brush through his hair. "You remember?"

Adam's head is burning worse than ever but – yeah. He remembers. Fuck. "Would it help if I said I was sorry?"

Kris laughs and snuggles up closer to him. "I think you managed to set everything right in the end."

Adam closes his eyes and remembers the end, standing on the porch with the sun catching Kris's hair and the way Kris smiled when Adam leant in to kiss him. "Well," he says. "I believe this is the point where I say I told you so."

Kris raises his eyebrows. "When exactly did you tell me so?"

"In Vegas, at our pre-wedding wedding. I said, 'No matter what happens or what mistakes we make; it will always be you, in the end.'"

Kris laughs and kisses him. "If only I had thought to recall our pre-wedding wedding vows." He rolls onto his back. "Also, you called yourself fat, so you have to buy me dinner. In fact, your mother said that you called yourself fat like a million times so you have to buy me dinner every night this week."

Adam rolls onto his back, pulling Kris on top of him. "I don't think bets should count if one of the parties can't remember them."

Kris kisses him again. "Adam Allen Lambert. Don't go changing the rules on me now." His hands slide up under Adam's T-shirt, tracing across his stomach. "Do you not _want_ to buy me dinner?"

Adam laughs and stretches his arms up to let Kris pull the top off over his head. "I will buy you dinner every night for the next _three_ weeks, if it will make you happy."

Kris leans down to drop a line of kisses from Adam's neck to his shoulder. "You know what else makes me happy?"

Adam reaches for Kris's pants. "I have a few ideas."

Of course it's that moment that the door swings open to admit a maelstrom of barking and two small paws pop up on the side of the bed.

Kris rolls off Adam onto his back, reaching down to wrap both hands around Clarence's middle and lift him up onto the bed, dropping him unceremoniously onto Adam's stomach where he curls into a soft, warm ball of fur.

Adam looks down at him and reaches out with one arm to tug Kris into a one armed hug at the side. "Remind me again why we bought a puppy."

**Author's Note:**

> *Extras*  
> [Clarence the puppy](http://www.dailypets.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/izzy6.jpg)  
> [Adam Lambert's well timed tweet](http://twitter.com/#!/adamlambert/status/92326252874174464)
> 
> Playlist:  
> Mad World - Gary Jules  
> Come home - onerepublic  
> Somewhere I belong - Linkin Park  
> I can't make you love me - Allison Iraheta  
> Everything - Cassidy Haley  
> Sowing Season – Brand New  
> When you were young - the Killers  
> The Reason – Hoobastank  
> Falling Slowly - Kris Allen  
> I will remember you - Ryan Cabrera


End file.
